Memorable scenes with everyday faces.

Hollywood is a place of extraordinary faces. When we think of our favorite actors and actresses and the movies that have defined them, we immediately think of the kinds of beauty that has been rendered improbably real and larger-than-life on the cinematic screen. The young Tom Cruise in Risky Business. The dashing Harrison Ford as Han Solo. Ingrid Bergman and Bogart and Rita Hayworth and Steve McQueen and Brad and Angelina and so many more.

But the most enduring movies are made up of more than this. For every impossibly stunning celebrity face that appears in a film, we also see many more actors – character actors – who come across as more normal, more “everyman”, more relatable to the millions of us who see a similarly everyday face staring back at us from the mirror. And sometimes – when movie magic is at its very best – these would-be famous B-listers get to shine in a Hollywood movie scene that lingers through history.

For example, consider John Getz. Born in Iowa to theatre-loving parents, Getz became trained in the theater arts, performing throughout the early days of his career in Shakespearean works and eventually soap operas, miniseries and movies. You’ve probably seen his face in movies before, and with credits such as Zodiac and Born on the Fourth of July and a host of TV appearances, Getz is someone who has worked steadily and successfully for more than three decades in Hollywood. I was reminded of Getz last week when I was re-watching the Coen brothers’ 1984 film Blood Simple in which Getz is featured in what was probably his only theatrical starring role.

Now Getz will probably never be a movie superstar. He can, no doubt, point to a number of film, television and theatre roles with a fair amount of pride and I’d even guess that he’s made a decent living at it. He can probably walk out in public without being bothered too much, so some might say that he enjoys the best of all Hollywood worlds: steady work, good pay, the comforts of fame with little of the bite of publicity that can accompany it.

And John Getz has one additional thing going for him. He stars in this incredible scene from the effed-up mind of David Cronenberg (Warning: if you haven’t guessed what scene this is, allow me to tell you that it is NASTY. Seriously. If you’re squeamish or in the cube at work, you might want to put this aside until later.):

Character actors are the ones you see in countless movies, and maybe you know their names and maybe not – but the truth is that these everyday-looking folks end up contributing in a big way to some of cinema’s most iconic and landmark scenes.

I’m kind of fascinated with Hollywood character actors, and I’m going to set out to find these scenes, the big scenes we remember from our favorite movies. The scenes that probably featured the main character, but which couldn’t have been made without the strong supporting work of an everyday face. I’ll bring these scenes to you, along with a little bit of background on the actor, in the coming weeks and months.