Pruitt Taylor Vince is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 award-winning character actor

Character actor

A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...

 who has made many appearances in film and television.

Personal life

Vince was born in Baton Rouge

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Baton Rouge is the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish and is the second-largest city in the state.Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, medical, and research center of the American South...

, Louisiana

Louisiana

Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

. He attended Louisiana State University

Louisiana State University

Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, most often referred to as Louisiana State University, or LSU, is a public coeducational university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The University was founded in 1853 in what is now known as Pineville, Louisiana, under the name...

 and began acting due to a mistake; a computer error in his high school registration scheduled him in an acting class, a subject which Vince has never left.

Divorce

Divorce

Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...

d from his first marriage, Vince remarried in 2003 to Julianne Mattelig. He has pathologic nystagmus, a condition which causes a person's eyes to move involuntarily.

Career

Vince made his film debut in Jim Jarmusch

Jim Jarmusch

James R. "Jim" Jarmusch is an American independent film director, screenwriter, actor, producer, editor and composer. Jarmusch has been a major proponent of independent cinema, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s.-Early life:...

's Down by Law

Down by Law (film)

Down by Law is a 1986 black-and-white independent film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It stars Tom Waits, John Lurie, and Roberto Benigni....

, but his scenes wound up on the cutting room floor

Cutting room floor

The term cutting room floor is used in the film industry as a figure of speech referring to unused footage not included in the finished film. In fact offcuts of film are retained in a special cutting room bin and numbered during the editing process in case they are required later...

. He had prominent supporting roles in a number of major films, including a turn as a dimwitted Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...

 member in Mississippi Burning

Mississippi Burning

Mississippi Burning is a 1988 American crime drama film loosely based on the FBI investigation into the real-life murders of three civil rights workers in the U.S. state of Mississippi in 1964. The film focuses on two fictional FBI agents who investigate the murders...

, Lee Bowers

Lee Bowers

Lee Edward Bowers, Jr. was a key witness to the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas in 1963. At the moment of the assassination he was operating the Union Terminal Company's two-story interlocking tower, overlooking the parking lot just north of the grassy knoll and west of the Texas...

 in JFK

JFK (film)

JFK is a 1991 American film directed by Oliver Stone. It examines the events leading to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and alleged subsequent cover-up, through the eyes of former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison .Garrison filed charges against New Orleans businessman Clay...

, and the main character's best friend in Nobody's Fool. He also starred in Giuseppe Tornatore

Giuseppe Tornatore

-Life and career:Born in Bagheria near Palermo, Tornatore developed an interest in acting and the theatre from at least the age of 16 and put on works by Luigi Pirandello and Eduardo De Filippo.He worked initially as a freelance photographer...

's The Legend of 1900

The Legend of 1900

The Legend of 1900 is a 1998 film directed by the Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore, starring Tim Roth. This is Tornatore's first English-language film. The film is inspired by a theater monologue, Novecento, by Alessandro Baricco...

alongside Tim Roth

Tim Roth

Simon Timothy "Tim" Roth is an English film actor and director best known for his roles in the American films,Legend of 1900, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Four Rooms, Skellig, Planet of the Apes, The Incredible Hulk and Rob Roy, receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for...

. He had his first lead role in James Mangold

James Mangold

James Allen Mangold is an American film director and screenwriter. He is perhaps best known for Walk the Line which he co-wrote and directed.-Life and career:...

's independent film Heavy

Heavy (film)

Heavy is a 1995 independent American drama film written and directed by James Mangold, and starring Liv Tyler, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Shelley Winters, and Deborah Harry...

, playing a sweet, silent overweight cook harboring a crush on a waitress (Liv Tyler

Liv Tyler

Liv Rundgren Tyler is an American actress and model. She is the daughter of Aerosmith's lead singer, Steven Tyler, and Bebe Buell, model and singer. Tyler began a career in modeling at the age of 14, but after less than a year she decided to focus on acting. She made her film debut in the 1994...

).

Vince often alternates roles of both heroic and villainous characters, like a lovable small town pub owner in Beautiful Girls, a serial killer

Serial killer

A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

 with multiple personalities in Identity

Identity (film)

Identity is a 2003 American thriller-mystery film, directed by James Mangold and written by Michael Cooney. The film stars John Cusack, Ray Liotta, John C. McGinley and Amanda Peet. The plot was inspired by Agatha Christie's novel And Then There Were None.-Plot:Malcolm Rivers is awaiting...

(a second collaboration with director Mangold), the disheveled gossip columnist in s1mone, and a pompous sheriff in Nurse Betty

Nurse Betty

Nurse Betty is a 2000 American comedy film directed by Neil LaBute starring Renée Zellweger as a sweet Kansas waitress who undergoes a nervous breakdown after witnessing her husband's murder, and starts obsessively pursuing her favorite soap actor....

. He can also be seen in Love from Ground Zero

Love from Ground Zero

Love From Ground Zero follows three strangers across the back roads of America with the ashes of a mutual friend. Using a series of old postcards as a map, the threesome drive from New York to Montana retracing their friend’s journey “out west” years before...

as Walter. Vince also played a Southern cop in Angel Heart

Angel Heart

Angel Heart is a 1987 North American/British mystery-thriller film written and directed by Alan Parker, and starring Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, and Lisa Bonet...

, a kidnapper's assistant in Trapped, and a deputy prison warden in Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone

William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, for which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. His work frequently focuses on...

's Natural Born Killers

Natural Born Killers

Natural Born Killers is a 1994 crime/black comedy film directed by Oliver Stone about two victims of traumatic childhoods who became lovers and psychopathic serial killers, and are irresponsibly glorified by the mass media...

.

Vince received an Emmy Award

Emmy Award

An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

 in 1997 for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his role as serial killer Clifford Banks

Clifford Banks

Clifford Banks is a fictional character introduced during the second season of the television program Murder One. Banks was portrayed by character actor Pruitt Taylor Vince....

 during the second season of the television series Murder One

Murder One (TV series)

Murder One is an American legal drama series that first aired on the ABC network in the United States in 1995. The series was created by Steven Bochco, Charles H. Eglee, and Channing Gibson.-Premise:...

. More recently he appeared in the movie Constantine

Constantine (film)

Constantine is a 2005 American action horror film directed by Francis Lawrence as his directorial debut, starring Keanu Reeves as John Constantine, with Rachel Weisz, Shia LaBeouf, Tilda Swinton, and Djimon Hounsou...

. Other film titles include the neo-noir

Neo-noir

Neo-noir is a style often seen in modern motion pictures and other forms that prominently utilize elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in films noir of the 1940s and 1950s.-History:The term Film Noir was coined by...

 China Moon

China Moon

China Moon is a 1994 neo-noir written by Roy Carlson, directed by John Bailey, and starring Ed Harris and Madeleine Stowe.-Plot:The film opens as detectives Kyle Bodine and Lamar Dickey investigate a murder scene...

and the psychological horror

Psychological horror

Psychological horror is a subgenre of horror fiction that relies on character fears, guilt, beliefs, eerie sound effects, relevant music and emotional instability to build tension and further the plot...

 film Jacob's Ladder

Jacob's Ladder (film)

Jacob's Ladder is a 1990 American psychological thriller/horror film directed by Adrian Lyne, based on a screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin.-Plot:Jacob Singer is a U.S. soldier deployed in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War...

.

Guest appearances on TV shows include Deadwood

Deadwood (TV series)

Deadwood is an American Western drama television series created, produced and largely written by David Milch. The series aired on the premium cable network HBO from March 21, 2004, to August 27, 2006, spanning three 12-episode seasons. The show is set in the 1870s in Deadwood, South Dakota, before...

, Alias

Alias (TV series)

Alias is an American action television series created by J. J. Abrams which was broadcast on ABC for five seasons, from September 30, 2001 to May 22, 2006...

, The X-Files

The X-Files

The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...

, Miami Vice

Miami Vice

Miami Vice is an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984–1989...

, Quantum Leap, Chicago Hope

Chicago Hope

Chicago Hope is an American medical drama series created by David E. Kelley that ran from September 18, 1994, to May 5, 2000. It takes place in a fictional private charity hospital.-Premise:The show stars Mandy Patinkin as Dr...

, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series, which premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000. The show was created by Anthony E. Zuiker and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...

, Highlander: The Series

Highlander: The Series

Highlander: The Series is a fantasy-adventure television series featuring Duncan MacLeod of the Scottish Clan MacLeod, as the Highlander. It was an offshoot and another alternate sequel of the 1986 feature film with a twist: Connor MacLeod did not win the prize and Immortals still exist post-1985...

, and the American remake of Touching Evil

Touching Evil

Touching Evil is a British television drama serial, which began airing in 1997. It was produced by United Productions for Anglia Television, and screened on the ITV network. The first series consisted of six fifty-minute episodes. It was created by Paul Abbott, and written by Abbott with Russell T...

. In 2011 he appeared as Otis in AMC's The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead (TV series)

The Walking Dead is an American post-apocalyptic horror television series developed for television by Frank Darabont and based on the ongoing comic book series, The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard...

. He also had a guest role playing a 600-lb. patient in Fox's medical drama House

House (TV series)

House is an American television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House , an unconventional and misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in...

. In 2010/2011 Pruitt Taylor Vince had a multi-episode appearance in The Mentalist

The Mentalist

The Mentalist is an American police procedural television series which debuted on September 23, 2008, on CBS. The show was created by Bruno Heller, who is also the show's executive producer...

. In mid-2011 he will feature in Flypaper

Flypaper (2011 film)

Flypaper is a comedy-drama film starring Patrick Dempsey, Ashley Judd, and Octavia Spencer and being directed by Rob Minkoff.-Plot:A man named Tripp is caught in the middle of two simultaneous robberies at a bank. One crew is more professional, the other crew consists of two men who call themselves...

.

External links