Michael Charles Chiklis (born 1963) is an Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning actor, producer, director, musician and philanthropist. He is an American of Greek and Irish descent.
Selected Filmography
Associated Tropes:
- Bald of Awesome: Since shaving what remained of his hair off (see Prematurely Bald, below) for The Shield, he plays these characters almost exclusively.
- The Big Guy: He is frequently cast in these sorts of roles, on account of his stocky physique. His Smart Guy roles are invariably Genius Bruisers, and his Heroes and Lancers inevitably overlap with Big-Guydom.
- Happily Married: To Michelle Epstein since 1992, with two kids.
- Mean Character, Nice Actor: The guy who played violent, corrupt sociopath Vic Mackey drove himself hoarse doing his Thing voice at autograph signings (which he never turns down), because he "couldn't say 'no' to an 8-year-old."
- Old Friend: Jay Leno. They've been buddies since high school.
- Prematurely Bald: At age 20, Chiklis shaved his head to look like he had male-pattern baldness for his role as a 95-year-old man in You Can't Take It With You. Instead of using powder on his head (as he did on his face), he used greasepaint, and he failed to remove it properly at the end of each day. This wound up killing most of the hair follicles on his head.
- Star-Derailing Role: Wired was commercially unsuccessful and critically panned, and almost killed his career in the crib. He didn't work again for almost two years, and he didn't really recover until...
- Star-Making Role / Career Resurrection: ...The Shield, and to a lesser extent, Fantastic Four, put him back on the map in a big way.
- Took a Level in Badass: A Real Life version. After portraying Curly in a Three Stooges TV movie, Chiklis grew unsatisfied with the direction of his career. To reinvent his image, his wife spent six months helping him with a new workout regimen. Then he shaved his head, and showed up to audition for The Shield looking like a scary badass who bore little resemblance to the lovable, pudgy "Commish" types he'd played up to that point.
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