Hey, It’s That Guy! – J.T. Walsh

There once was a website called Fametracker. It had a semi-regular feature named for the seminal “Hey! It’s that guy!” from seemingly every movie made in the late ’80s and early ’90s called J.T. Walsh. Here’s the thing, he was incredibly prolific until his untimely death in 1998 at the age of 54. As an introduction and a tribute to a great actor, he’s our first HITG. Given our focus on the eighties, we’ll largely go with films from that decade, but to help you along we’ll also summarise works since.

Typecast as: Military stickler for procedure / hostile local sherriff / political type / corrupt government agent

You’ve probably seen him in: Good Morning Vietnam (Robin Williams used to be funny you know), Tin Men (Baltimore period piece set in the ’50s), Tequila Sunrise (Mel Gibson/Kurt Russell humdinger)

What makes him special: That snarl. Just don’t mess with him. He’ll come for you when you least expect it. He cornered the market on glowering menace.

What he’s been in since: Short-lived ’90s sci-fi show Dark Skies (doomed to fail but it gave us Jeri Ryan), Nixon, Executive Decision (both as a politician), Pleasantville (I’d be hostile if Reece Witherspoon & Tobey Maguire messed with my neighbourhood too!)

Walsh was the man when it came to brooding malevolence, culminating in his role as Frank Bach in Dark Skies. We’ll probably never see his like again, as comfortable in big-budget ensemble casts as he was in crappy TV movies. Mr Walsh, we salute you as the ultimate Hey, It’s That Guy!