I Know That Face

Let's talk about Riley Keough! Let's talk about Fury Road! This week Stephen and Andrew freefall through the career of one of the 2010's best character actors: Riley Keough. Already familiar with fame as the granddaughter of Elvis Presley, Keough took the road less travelled when it came to her own career. Beginning with The Runaways in 2010, the actress spent the first half of the 2010s appearing...

This week on I Know That Face, Stephen and Andrew venture into uncharted territory as they discuss the only character actor in the MCU: Don Cheadle. Beginning with the 'Nam war film Hamburger Hill, Cheadle made his mark in Hollywood early and often. With films like Devil in a Blue Dress, Boogie Nights, Out of Sight, the Ocean's Trilogy and The Guard, the actor has stayed in the public eye for over...

And we're back! For our first episode of 2022, we're taking a look at the career of Hollywood's most reliable Frenchman Vincent Cassel. First rising to prominence in Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine as macho French youth Vinz, the actor went on to establish himself as a leading heavyweight in France. Starring in films like L'Apartment, Dobermann and Brotherhood of the Wolf, Cassel was much sought afte...

Is it that time of the year already? Before the I Know That Face crew takes a short break in the new year, we're sharing our annual discussion of the best films of the past 12 months with you. 2021, like its predecessor, was a strange year for movies. Superhero cinema came back in a big way and along with low-budget horror reasserted its claim to the box office throne. Many delayed films such as T...

For the final character actor episode of 2021, Stephen and Andrew look at the career of Swedish actress Noomi Rapace. Best known as Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and its sequels, Rapace has made a career of playing determined yet vulnerable female characters. Though her first English language role was Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, it was Ridley...

With the new millennium, John Malkovich only became more prolific and hence better known. His first role in the 2000s was as a psychotic version of the German Expressionist director F. W. Murnau opposite Willem Dafoe's Max Shreck in Shadow of the Vampire. Another iconic albeit fictional character followed with his take on Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley in Ripley's Game. In 2008, he was part of an...

Another anniversary, another two-parter. This year, we’re covering John Malkovich. A man of many hairpieces, the legend has been acting in film since his Oscar-nominated debut Places in the Heart. He followed that on with Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun and Stephen Frears’ Dangerous Liaisons. In the 90s, Malkovich continued working in high brow fare like The Sheltering Sky and The Portrait of...

We’re coming to get you Barbara! Crampton that is! We’re joined by returning guest Katie McGrath to discuss the career of one of horror’s brightest stars. Beginning her career in the genre with Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator, Crampton played a variety of roles in 80s and 90s B pictures such as Castle Freak, Chopping Mall and From Beyond. A career break in the 2000s presaged a huge comeback in the las...

For over 30 years, Tony Todd has been thrilling all kinds of audiences in a variety of roles and as part of our special October horror series, we're covering the career of the Candyman himself. Beginning in Oliver Stone's Platoon, the classically trained Todd soon landed two of the most iconic roles in horror cinema. In the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead, he played the role of Ben in a sp...

Lili Taylor has been a mainstay of American indie and mainstream cinema since 1988. This week we turn our focus to her performances in a wide variety of films. Much sought after for both her timeless appeal and ability to dig deep into very complex characters, Taylor has acted consistently in both TV and film for over 30 years. Starting off in rom-coms like Mystic Pizza, she quickly graduated to h...

Brad Dourif has almost as many serial killer roles in his resume as the United States has actual serial killers. This week, Andrew and Stephen break down the career of one of the hardest working character actors ever. Over a nearly 50 year career, Dourif has acted in prestigious Oscar-winning dramas like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, surreal sci-fi epics such as David Lynch's Dune and given voi...

It's a tale as old as cinema itself: the star beloved in their home country heads to Hollywood to make it in the big time only to find themself playing middling villain roles. So it went and is still going with Mads Mikkelsen's career. Seen as the face of a resurgent Danish cinema in his home country, he is mostly cast as the bad guy in western pictures. Joined by returning guest Sean Moriarty, th...

The best (and only) character actor podcast in the world returns! For their first episode back Andrew and Stephen head north to talk the career of Michael Smiley. A Northern Irishman, Smiley got his start as the rave-obsessed bike courier Tyres O'Flaherty in Edgar Wright's sitcom Spaced. His first major supporting film role came in 2008's Outpost. From there he began a series of collaborations wit...

In this very special bonus episode of I Know That Face, Stephen Porzio chats with actor Stephen Dorff. Having appeared in such projects as Beatles-centred drama Backbeat, superhero movie Blade, Sofia Coppola's masterpiece Somewhere and hit series True Detective, Dorff stars in the excellent new sports drama Embattled - now available on digital download. In the movie, he plays a brash, maniacal MMA...

This week, Stephen and Andrew take a look at Holly Hunter's long and varied career. Hunter got her big break in 1987 in the Coen Brothers' Raising Arizona and received her first Best Actress nod at the Oscars for Broadcast News the same year. Hunter channeled this success into an eventual Best Actress win for The Piano as well as a Best Supporting Actress nomination for The Firm. Known for her dis...

There are few character actors out there that look capable of both long division and of delivering a vicious head-butt. This week's subject, James Badge Dale, is one of those character actors. Best known for playing a varied assortment of cops, sheriffs, state troopers, security specialists, soldiers and CIA contractors, Dale imbues all his characters with a physicality, intelligence and vulnerabi...

At long last, cinema is back! To mark the occasion, I Know That Face is releasing this special bonus episode. Co-host Stephen Porzio had the chance to speak with actor Orion Lee about First Cow, the new movie from podcast favourite Kelly Reichardt. Screening at the Irish Film Institute (IFI) now, before hitting streaming service Mubi on July 9, the drama centres on a quiet American chef and a Chin...

This week we're going from Scotland to Texas to Atlantic City as we take on the career of Kelly Macdonald. Starting off as the underage seductress Diane in Trainspotting, Macdonald channeled this success into securing strong roles in Robert Altman's Gosford Park and the 2003 Irish thriller Intermission. The mid-2000s saw her support in childrens' films like Nanny McPhee and Lassie and in more adul...

It's golden-oldies week on I Know That Face. Take a step back in time to the Golden Age of Hollywood with Andrew and Stephen to revisit the career of Edward G. Robinson, see? Known for his tough-guy gangsters in films like Little Caesar and Key Largo, Robinson starred in 101 movies over the course of 50 years from gambling dramas like The Cincinnati Kid to sci-fi thrillers such as Soylent Green. A...

Hard to believe we've been doing this over a year and this is our first big disagreement. This week on I Know That Face Andrew and Stephen break down the career of Christopher Abbott from his Broadway beginnings to his consistent indie output. Stephen's a big fan. Andrew is not. Whether it's dramas like James White and Tyrel or thrillers such as It Comes At Night and Sweet Virginia or horrors like...

Joined by returning guest Mia Sherry, the I Know That Face crew dive deep into the career of Meth Damon himself, Jesse Plemons! Beginning his career as a child actor Plemons came to attention as Landry in Friday Night Lights. He quickly followed that show's end in 2011 with a heel turn into one of Breaking Bad's most venomous villains, Todd Alquist. It's been quite a decade for Plemons with roles...

In this special I Know That Face episode, Stephen Porzio chats with writer-director Corinna Faith about her brilliant debut feature The Power, streaming on Shudder now. A 70s-set horror, it centres on a young nurse forced to work the night shift during a blackout. Already scared of the dark due to a traumatic event in her past, she soon realises an angry spirit is haunting the hospital. Here, the...

This week Stephen and Andrew are joined by screenwriter, producer and filmmaker Niall Cassin to talk about the evergreen career of Bruce Greenwood. Capable of switching from cool authority figures like JFK in Thirteen Days to monstrous husbands in Double Jeopardy and Gerald's Game to sensitive working class men such as Billy Ansel in The Sweet Hereafter, Greenwood has carved out a path for himself...

This week we're travelling from feudal Japan to the surface of the sun with the career of Hiroyuki Sanada. Sanada began acting at the age of six, rapidly fulfilling his childhood dream as an action star. After a slew of samurai films in the 1970s he went west to Hong Kong to star in martial arts films like Ninja in the Dragon's Den and In the Line of Duty: Royal Warriors. He became a well-respecte...

This week Andrew and Stephen discuss the programme for the 2021 Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival, running from March 3 - 14. They each pick five gems from the line-up to check out. Then, in the second half, Stephen chats to actor and writer Les Martin and director Cathal Nally about their Dublin-set drama-thriller and DIFF highlight Be Good or Be Gone. They talk about the movie's fe...