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Chris Mulkey

Chris Mulkey has built the sort of career that rewards anyone who pays attention to supporting players. Born in Viroqua on May 3, 1948, the American actor and film producer has worked across film and television, moving between long-running parts, brief appearances and genre projects without being tied to a single kind of role. One of Mulkey’s most sustained television roles came in Any Day Now, where he played the husband of Annie Potts’s character from 1998 to 2002. His other credits include Twin Peaks, 24, Boardwalk Empire, Friday Night Lights, Boomtown, Justified and Baretta, along with the NBC television movie Knight Rider. It is a collection of projects that places him across several distinct corners of American television. His film work is similarly varied. Mulkey costarred with John Jenkins and Karen Landry in the 1988 independent film Patti Rocks, appeared in the science-fiction action film The Hidden and followed with the 1989 science-fiction cop film K-9000. He also played Jacob “Hawk” Manley in the Wing Commander franchise. Later screen appearances include Cloverfield, Captain Phillips, The Purge, Slow Burn, Sanitarium, The Identical and On the Basis of Sex. In 2014, he made a cameo appearance in Whiplash. Mulkey’s career also extends beyond conventional film and television roles. He played the main character in Supertramp’s controversial 1985 music video for “Brother Where You Bound,” another credit that fits the wide-ranging shape of his screen work. He is also connected to music through his southern blues band, Chris Mulkey and Blue Highway. Taken together, these roles make Mulkey a familiar presence across decades of movies and television: sometimes central, sometimes passing through, but repeatedly adding another distinct credit to an unusually broad body of work.