Seeing Luis Guzman always makes me say “Hey, it’s that guy!”, even though these days I remember his name.
OTOH, I always forget the name of that ubiquitous Chinese guy with the Fu Manchu mustache (who according to the same site is Al Leong). It’s a rare movie indeed in which Al actually gets to say anything articulate.
Uh huh. And you know who else I like? John C. McGinley.
(Sorry, sometimes I start to feel invisible around here.)
Al Leong! That guy has gotten his ass kicked by Riggs and Murtaugh, John McClane, and Jack Bauer!
Some of my favorite actors are character actors: Bruce Campbell, Christopher Walken, Steve Buscemi. I like Paul Giamatti (Mr. Pigvomit in Private Parts, Harvey Pekar in American Splendor) a lot too. Anyone who has ever been in a Quentin Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez movie gets cheers from me as well, such as Michael Madsen and Danny Trejo.
It should be noted that William Devane isn’t just a That Guy. He played Senator Greg Sumner (one of the more conflicted villains of night-time soap opera) on Knots Landing for ten years.
I did not know that! Why didn’t I know that? Interesting!
I’m going to second the Gary Cole nomination. My husband and I spent an entire episode of Monk trying to figure out where we’d seen the slimey bad guy until we figured out “Ohhhh! It’s Mr. Brady without the afro!”
Jonathan Banks always seems to get cast as a heavy, or enforcer.
Curse you Gyrate! 
I was almost all the way through this thread and thought I was going to be the first to get to mention Al Leong, but you had to get there ahead of me!
Without looking at the IMDb I can name the following movies he was in:
Big Trouble in Little China
Die Hard
Lethal Weapon
Godzilla
and, in perhaps his most recognizable role, although he still didn’t get to speak
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
I loved it when Genghis Khan took out the sporting goods store!
Bruce McGill, probably best known as “D-Day” from “Animal House.” He was also in the “Quantum Leap” series pilot as “Weird Ernie” and the series finale as, um, God(?) (whose name happened to be "Al).
John McGinley was a great suggestion. I was wondering about him earlier and looked up his name on the IMDb. He is Muzak and beige wallpaper and a car horn in the city. The guy is just always there…
The THAT Guy that I always think of is William Hootkins. Maybe I’m just watching the right movies and TV shows.
I mention him in the OP as being Lieutenant Eckhart in Batman, Major Eaton (one of the Army Intelligence guys) in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and he’s Lt. Porkins from Star Wars. Oh, and he’s the mad drunken monk in Blackadder Season Two, “Beer.”
In my house we call them by the first role we saw them in. For example
Michael Wincott is and always will be Miguel De Moxicá, his character in 1492. My dad always says to the TV in a raspy voice “Colombo…” (what Moxicá called Columbus as an insult) whenever he appears on screen.
Same thing for Mark Margolis. He’s Bobadilla, for his character in 1492
And my favorite: Thomas Rosales Jr. AKA Dead Man or Gonner, he always dies, usually he’s the first one.
My favorites include Tracey Walter (best known perhaps for Cookie in the City Slickers movies, but he’s also been in Silence of the Lambs [“It’s a bug cocoon…”], Philadelphia and even a major role in the AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL movie Destiny Turns on the Radio. I’m dating myself, but he was hysterical on a show called Best of the West with fellow “What’s his name”, Leonard Frey.
Paxton Whitehead , perhaps best known as the snooty Brit neighbor on Mad About You, is basically the perfect snooty Brit stereotype for hire of choice in Hollywood. His imdb entry doesn’t give a birthplace; perhaps, like the butler from The Nanny, he’s actually an Arkansan as well.
Geoffrey Lewis , the father of Juliette Lewis, is at least a duke in the What’s his Name aristocracy.
A couple of times I’ve mentioned Jeffrey Jones.
When I tell them he was the dad in Beetlejuice, I get, “Oh, that guy”
My personal favourite ‘that guy’ is Miguel Ferrer, who managed to be the ‘that guy’ on three different series at once in 1990, Twin Peaks (As the coroner), Shannon’s Deal (As the Asisstant D.A.) and Broken Badges (As a cajun cop).
Plus he gets points for being a less famous relative of George Clooney (Cousin) and his parents (Mel Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney)
If you happen to watch a lot of Australian movies, Bill Hunter and David Field are the official 'that guy’s". Hunter’s appeared in just about every movie made in Oz in the past two decades, from Newsfront and Gallipoli to Muriel’s Wedding (The Father) & Priscilla (The Driver) to Crackerjack and Bad Eggs. Field has this habit of showing up in prison movies, and has the distinctly unusual credit of being the only person to play two different real life people who were [cough]allegedly[/cough] killed by Chopper Reid. (Chopper and the little seen Everynight…Everynight, which oddly enough also starred Bill Hunter)
When I saw Requiem for a Dream, I thought he looked and sounded familiar, but I had no idea…
(“Goliath??? He was Goliath? And in Where the Heart Is? My head hurts”)
[QUOTE=lieu]
I’d have to go with J.T. Walsh.
DEA Agent Hal Maguire from Tequila Sunrise.
Seargent Major Dick Dickerson from Good Morning VietNam
Husband Wayne Brown from Red Rock West
Jason McThune from The Client
Charles Bushman from Sling Blade
Inspector Niebaum from The Negotiator
You forgot “Colonel” (?) Frank Bach in DARK SKIES (which is how I first got to know him). I found out on IMDB that he also was Norman Schwartzkopf in 1996’s CRIME OF THE CENTURY
How about the all-time “That Guy” James Hampton? (Johnny Carson had him captioned every time he was on camera one night because they were discussing his problem being “that guy”.)
Btw, he was psychiatrist Dr. Jerry Woolridge in Sling Blade. I bet Sling Blade has a lot of “that guys” in the cast.
And of course, it’s illegal in England to make a movie or TV series without Brian Blessed or John Rhys Davies now that Roy Kinnear and Leo McKern are dead.
Oh, yeah, Roy Kinnear. I saw “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” recently and kept wondering to myself, “Where had I seen this guy before???” According to the IMDB site, he was in a few Mike and the Mechanics videos, the one I remembered him from being “The Living Years.”
His name is Curtis Armstrong. And he’s actually gotten lots of work since! (-:
- Freewill39.Stephen Tobolowsky is a great one! I first noticed him when I saw The Grifters. He played the jeweler who Annette Benning tried to seduce.