"Looks like an albino deer."
"He looks like he even shits blonde."
"He looked like a husky! Sled dog? It was the eyes."
— A list of phrases used on Justified to describe a character played by Neal McDonough.
Neal P. McDonough (born February 13, 1966 in Dorchester, Massachusetts) is an American film, television, actor and voice actor.
With the sharp blue eyes of a husky and hair so blond it would make Hitler have to sit down and fan himself, McDonough is extremely prolific and has played everything from warm father figures to cold-blooded villains. And he always looks like he's having a ball doing it.
Perhaps his best known roles are that of Lieutenant Lynn "Buck" Compton in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, Dave Williams on ABC's Desperate Housewives (2008–2009), Robert Quarles on Justified and his roles in films such as Walking Tall (2004) where he played the Big Bad and Captain America: The First Avenger where he played Dum-Dum Dugan. He also played DC Comics villain Damien Darhk in the Arrowverse.
Film Roles
- 1994 Angels in the Outfield as Whit Bass
- 1996 Star Trek: First Contact as Lieutenant Hawk
- 1997 Fire Down Below as a truck driver
- 1999 Ravenous as Reich
- 2002 Minority Report as Officer Gordon 'Fletch' Fletcher
- 2003 Timeline as Frank Gordon
- 2004 Walking Tall as Jay Hamilton
- 2006 The Guardian as Jack Skinner
- 2006 Flags of Our Fathers as Capt. Dave Severance
- 2007 The Hitcher as Lt Esteridge
- 2007 I Know Who Killed Me as Daniel Fleming
- 2008 Traitor as Max Archer
- 2009 Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li as M. Bison
- Marvel Cinematic Universe as Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan
- 2011 Captain America: The First Avenger
- 2013 Marvel One-Shots: Agent Carter
- 2014 Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
- 2015 Agent Carter
- 2021 What If...?
- 2013 Company Of Heroes as Lieutenant Joe Conti
- 2013 Red 2 as Jack Horton
- 2014 Batman: Assault on Arkham as Deadshot/Floyd Lawton
- 2017 1922 as Harlan Cotterie
- 2018 Game Over, Man! (2018) as Conrad
- 2020 Sonic the Hedgehog as Major Bennington
- 2023 Soul Mates as the Matchmaker
Television Roles
- 1995 Iron Man: The Animated Series as Firebrand
- 1996 The Incredible Hulk (1996) as Dr. Robert Bruce Banner
- 2001 Band of Brothers as First Lieutenant, Lynn "Buck" Compton
- 2002 The X-Files as Agent Robert Colmer
- 2002 Boomtown as Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney, David McNorris
- 2007 Traveler as Secretary of Homeland Security, Jack Freed
- 2007 Tin Man as Wyatt Cain (the Tin Man)
- 2008–2009 Desperate Housewives as Dave Williams
- 2012 Justified as Robert Quarles
- 2013 Mob City as William Parker
- 2014 Suits as Sean Cahill
- 2015-2022 Arrowverse as Damien Darhk
- 2020 The 100 as Anders
- 2021 American Horror Story: Double Feature as Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower
Videogame Roles
- 2005 The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction as Bruce Banner.
- 2009 Rogue Warrior as Admiral Travis Payton
- 2011 Captain America: Super Soldier as Dum Dum Dugan
- 2013 Injustice: Gods Among Us as The Flash, Nightwing (Damian Wayne)
- 2015 Skylanders: SuperChargers as Astroblast
- 2015 Call of Duty: Black Ops III as Jack Vincent
Tropes:
- Awesome, Dear Boy:
- He was considering giving up on acting, but Band of Brothers convinced him to keep doing it.
- After Buck Compton, Wyatt in Tin Man is his favourite role — jumping at the chance to play a "Gary Cooper, High Noon esque character." He had always wanted to play the Tin Man as well, having played the Cowardly Lion in a school production of The Wizard of Oz.
- Beam Me Up, Scotty!: He's frequently asked by fans to say "I'm Buck Compton, baby". Buck never says this in the miniseries. It's something Neal can be heard saying on the Ron Livingston Video Diaries as he comes back from the hospital.
- Contractual Purity: He's rather famous for refusing to do love scenes. Due to his strong Catholic beliefs, he will not kiss any woman who is not his wife. He was even fired from the TV show Scoundrels because of it
. On the other hand, he had no problem playing a Depraved Bisexual and being shot in suggestive scenes with men in Justified. - Creator Breakdown: While filming the third episode of Band of Brothers he suffered it, realising the full extent of what he was getting into. To this day, he can't watch the episode "The Breaking Point" due to how heavily into character he got.
- Dawson Casting: At the age of thirty-three, he plays Buck Compton at twenty-three over a two-year period.
- Playing Against Type: Neal usually plays heroic or wholesome characters, but has played a few villains in his time:
- A ruthless casino tycoon in Walking Tall.
- A sadistic carpetbagging mobster in Justified.
- A Bitch in Sheep's Clothing in Desperate Housewives.
- The Chessmaster Damien Darhk in Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow.
- Those Two Actors: He's starred with some of his Band of Brothers cast members in other stuff — Donnie Wahlberg in Boomtown and Rick Gomez in Justified.
- Wag the Director: He demanded for a more redemptive ending on Desperate Housewives, which resulted in Dave sparing Mike and Susan's kid at the last minute.
- What Could Have Been:
- Lt Hawk in Star Trek: First Contact was written to be gay, making him the first openly gay character in the franchise. All references to him being gay were left out of the script. He was given Word of Gay by way of a tie-in novel.
- It's rumoured that in Tin Man Wyatt and DG were originally going to become a couple. It's unknown if this was changed due to Neal's stance on love scenes (see above) or simply because of the twenty-year age difference between him and Zooey Deschanel.
- According to Nathan Fillion, Neal was one of the actors being considered for Mal Reynolds in Firefly.
- Dum-Dum Dugan was meant to appear in the Season 1 finale of Agent Carter to be on standby to shoot down Howard's plane. It was changed to Mr. Jarvis when Neal was unavailable.
