Craig T. Nelson

Craig T. Nelson is an actor, born 1944.

Nelson spent the 1960s writing jokes for other people. He studied at Central Washington University and the University of Arizona, worked Los Angeles as a gag writer and stand-up comic, and did not commit to acting until 1971, which is late enough that he arrived with a grown man's face and none of the ingenue years to burn off.

That face got him hired as authority figures, and what he does with them is why the career lasted fifty years. Nelson plays men in charge whose control is coming apart underneath the job title, and he never signals it. Steve Freeling in Poltergeist is a real-estate salesman defending a house that is eating his family, and the performance is mostly a man trying to stay polite. Alexander Cullen in The Devil's Advocate is a developer with no illusions about what he is guilty of. Hayden Fox on Coach, which won him the Emmy, is a bully whose bluster is a thin skin over panic. Even Mr. Incredible runs on that principle: the joke of The Incredibles is a superhero folded into an insurance cubicle, and Nelson plays the sag rather than the strength.

The credits are unusually spread for a character lead. He turns up in prestige drama (Silkwood, The Killing Fields, ...And Justice for All), broad studio comedy (Stir Crazy, Private Benjamin, Blades of Glory), network procedural (The District, CSI: NY) and family animation, sometimes inside the same few years. The later run settled into fathers and grandfathers, from Zeek Braverman on Parenthood to Dale Ballard on Young Sheldon and its follow-up Georgie and Mandy's First Marriage, with a good sour supporting turn in The Company Men along the way.

TV (14)

Where to start with Craig T. Nelson

Start with Poltergeist. It is the clearest demonstration of what he does, a suburban father holding a polite tone long past the point where polite makes sense, and it has aged better than most of the haunted-house films around it.

For the comedy, Coach is the record: a man whose confidence is entirely performed, and the Emmy was fair. The Incredibles runs the same instrument warmly and plays well straight afterwards. When you want him unpleasant, The Devil's Advocate hands him a client who knows exactly what he is, and All the Right Moves casts him as a high-school coach who can end a teenager's future with one phone call.

The late work is where the softening happens. Parenthood is the family patriarch done properly, over enough episodes that the warmth is earned, and The Company Men gives him an executive rationalising the layoffs he signs.

Mr Incredible and the later comedies

Bob Parr is a middle-aged man who misses being useful, which is a much better part than a superhero cartoon needed. The shorts and specials keep bringing him back, and The Proposal is the live-action comedy from the same period.

The eighties and the serious films

The early career is much heavier than the sitcom decade suggests. Poltergeist is the famous one, but Silkwood and The Killing Fields are the serious films, and he is a small precise presence in both of them. The range narrowed later, not earlier.

Television

Coach ran nine seasons and won him the Emmy, and it is the reason a whole American generation knows the voice. The District is the drama, Parenthood the prestige family series, and Young Sheldon the late-career recurring role.

Genres Craig T. Nelson works in

More about Craig T. Nelson

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