Chris Ellis Movies, TV Shows, and Filmography
Chris Ellis
Acting
Biography
Chris Ellis (born April 14, 1956) is an American film and television actor. Ellis always wanted to be an actor because of television. He grew up in the 50's in the deep south in a "world of privation and violence", but saw on television people who seemed to have lives of ease and privilege. It took him seven years to finish college however, because "I have always been shiftless". During those years Chris became involved in community theatre in Memphis, where "I did and do still think the quality of the work has always been quite good". By the time he moved to New York, he had worked with many excellent actors in about two dozen plays, classical and contemporary. "I cannot imagine what might have supplanted that background for a newcomer in New York." His first part in either television or film came in 1979, where he played a truck driver in the TV movie The Suicide's Wife, which starred Angie Dickinson. The role resulted in very little TV or film work. After working in regional theatre for a year or so, Chris fell off the radar screen and did not work for about ten years. During that time he lived in "bone-grinding poverty" in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen. In one nine-month period of 1987, Chris accepted 102 dinner invitations. "I don't know why they kept arriving, nor why I counted them, though I do know why I accepted them." In 1990, a break came when he got a part in Days of Thunder, which starred Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Cary Elwes, Robert Duvall, and Randy Quaid. John C. Reilly and Fred Dalton Thompson also appear. This seemed to jump-start Ellis' career as parts in films like My Cousin Vinny with Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei, a small part in Addams Family Values, and a larger one in Apollo 13 as former NASA Mercury Seven astronaut Deke Slayton, alongside Tom Hanks, followed. He also began picking up credits on well-known television shows like Melrose Place, NYPD Blue, and The X-Files. Since working with Hanks on Apollo 13, the two have worked together on That Thing You Do, the TV miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, and Catch Me If You Can. Ellis returned to a fictional NASA Mission Control when he played a Flight Director in 1998's Armageddon. Additional films in which Ellis has appeared include Home Fries, October Sky, Live Free or Die Hard, and Transformers. His television credits also include The West Wing, Ghost Whisperer, Chicago Hope, The Pretender, Alias, JAG, CSI: NY, Burn Notice, and Cold Case. He appeared in three season one episodes of Millennium as group member Jim Panseayres. He has established a reputation as being particularly talented at portraying Southern lawmakers or serious military or police-type characters. He also appeared in Criminal Minds as Sheriff Jimmy Rhodes who calls for the BAU's help in investigating a string of murders in New Mexico. In addition to that, he also had two guest appearances in NCIS as Gunnery Sergeant John Deluca. Ellis's appearance in the Season 1 episode, "The Curse" was uncredited while his second and final appearance in Season 2's "The Bone Yard" was credited. Description above from the Wikipedia article Chris Ellis (actor), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Filmography Movies
Acting
Armageddon
When an asteroid threatens to collide with Earth, NASA honcho Dan Truman determines the only way to stop it is to drill into its surface and detonate a nuclear bomb. This leads him to renowned driller Harry Stamper, who agrees to helm the dangerous space mission provided he can bring along his own hotshot crew. Among them is the cocksure A.J. who Harry thinks isn't good enough for his daughter, until the mission proves otherwise.
Godzilla
French nuclear tests irradiate an iguana into a giant monster that viciously attacks freighter ships in the Pacific Ocean. A team of experts, including Niko Tatopoulos, conclude that the oversized reptile is the culprit. Before long, the giant lizard is loose in Manhattan as the US military races to destroy the monster before it reproduces and it's spawn takes over the world.
Apollo 13
The true story of technical troubles that scuttle the Apollo 13 lunar mission in 1970, risking the lives of astronaut Jim Lovell and his crew, with the failed journey turning into a thrilling saga of heroism. Drifting more than 200,000 miles from Earth, the astronauts work furiously with the ground crew to avert tragedy.
Bean
Childlike Englishman, Mr. Bean, is an incompetent watchman at the Royal National Gallery. After the museum's board of directors' attempt to have him fired is blocked by the chairman, who has taken a liking to Bean, they send him to Los Angeles to act as their ambassador for the unveiling of a historic painting to humiliate him. Fooled, Mr. Bean must now successfully unveil the painting or risk his and a hapless Los Angeles curator's termination.
Catch Me If You Can
A true story about Frank Abagnale Jr. who, before his 19th birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor. An FBI agent makes it his mission to put him behind bars. But Frank not only eludes capture, he revels in the pursuit.
Live Free or Die Hard
John McClane is back and badder than ever, and this time he calls on the services of a young hacker in his bid to stop a ring of Internet terrorists intent on taking control of America's computer infrastructure.
My Cousin Vinny
Two carefree pals traveling through rural Alabama on their way back to college are mistakenly arrested and charged with murder. Fortunately, one of them has a cousin who's a lawyer - Vincent Gambini, a former auto mechanic from Brooklyn who has just passed his bar exam after his sixth try. When he arrives with his leather-clad girlfriend to try his first case, it's a real shock - for him and the Deep South!
The Watcher
FBI agent Joel Campbell, burnt-out and shell-shocked after years spent chasing serial killers, flees L.A. to begin a new life for himself in Chicago. But five months later, Joel's best laid plans are abruptly cut short when his new hometown becomes the setting for some particularly gruesome murders--murders that could only have been committed by one man: David Allen Griffin. One of Joel's most elusive and cunning nemeses, Griffin has followed his former pursuer to Chicago in order to play a sadistic game of cat and mouse. Taunting Joel with photographs of his intended victims and leaving his crime scenes meticulously free of clues in order to keep the police at bay, Griffin derives as much pleasure out of watching Joel react to every movement as watching his victims die. But when Griffin moves into Joel's inner circle, Joel must quickly find some way to stop him before someone close to him becomes the next one to die.
Sparkler
Melba is a Californian trailer-park girl who is told to look for three kings by a phone psychic, and when she meets three guys - Trent, Brad and Joel traveling to Las Vegas, she decides they are those kings and joins them on their trip.
Gospel Hill
Gospel Hill tells the intersecting story of two men in the fictional South Carolina town of Julia. Danny Glover plays John Malcolm, the son of a slain civil rights activist. Jack Herrod (Tom Bower) is the former sheriff who never got to the bottom of the murder. Their paths begin to cross when a development corporation comes to town with plans to raze Julia's historic Gospel Hill.
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