Henry Ian Cusick
Henry Ian Cusick is an actor, born 1967.
Henry Ian Cusick was born in Trujillo, Peru, and Wikipedia files him as Peruvian-Scottish, an actor of television, film and theatre who also directs. He worked in British television and on stage before the American run, including a turn on Murder Rooms, and in 2003 he played Jesus in The Gospel of John.
Then came Desmond Hume. Lost gave him a character built almost entirely out of longing and bad timing, and Cusick found a register nobody else on that show was using: soft, patient, faintly amused, with an accent that let him say sentimental lines without embarrassment. He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy. The role is still the reason most people know the name, and the series brought him back for a short revisit in LOST: Circle years later.
The career since has settled into authority. Marcus Kane on The 100 is the longest of them, a man responsible for decisions nobody should have to make. Dr. Jonas Lear on The Passage, Russ Taylor on the MacGyver reboot, Dr. Evan Declan on Marvel's Inhumans, John Swift on NCIS: Hawaii: senior men inside institutions, competent and usually compromised. It is steady work rather than a second peak, and none of it has come close to Desmond.
Movies (9)
TV (12)
Where to start with Henry Ian Cusick
Lost is not optional here, though you do not need all of it. Desmond arrives after the first season and eventually gets the episode most viewers name as the show's best, so anyone who stalled early can still be pulled back in by him.
The 100 is the other real commitment, a much harsher series than its teen packaging suggests, and Kane is one of the two or three characters it takes seriously across the whole run. The Gospel of John is the outlier and worth a look as a curiosity, a straight-faced recitation with Cusick at the middle of it.
For smaller doses: The Mentalist gives him a rare turn as a villain, The Passage is a short-lived adaptation that is better than its cancellation implies, and The Wingfeather Saga is the family animation where he is unrecognizable. Hitman can be skipped.
The genre television
Desmond Hume is the role and the reason people know the name, a character introduced in the second season who became the emotional centre of the whole show. The genre work since has been steady and rarely as good.
The films
The film work is thin and mostly small, which is common for actors who become synonymous with one television character. Rememory is the most interesting of them and Not Another Happy Ending is the Scottish romantic comedy.
The early and the unusual
The strangest credit here is The Gospel of John, a word-for-word film of the entire gospel with him in the lead, made before Lost. The Murder Rooms series and the early adventure television are where the theatre training shows.