Jon Seda
Jon Seda is an actor, born 1970.
Jon Seda was an amateur boxer before he was an actor, and his way in was unusually literal: he auditioned for the 1992 boxing film Gladiator and got the part. The training shows in everything since. He is compact, quick on his feet and physically credible in a way most actors have to fake, which is presumably why the prison boxing film Undisputed wanted him a decade later.
His best work is his quietest. As Chris Perez in Selena he plays the guitarist who marries into a famous family, and he does most of it by listening, which is harder than it looks opposite Jennifer Lopez in full flight. In The Pacific he is John Basilone, the Marine who received the Medal of Honor, and the stretch where Basilone is pulled off the line and sent home to sell war bonds is the best material anyone has given him.
Since 2014 he has largely belonged to one television universe. Antonio Dawson started on Chicago Fire, moved across to Chicago P.D., carried the spin-off Chicago Justice, and then went back. Before that he had a long run as Paul Falsone on Homicide: Life on the Street and a good part in Treme. The 1990s film credits are worth noting because they suggest a different trajectory: small roles in Twelve Monkeys, Carlito's Way and Primal Fear, three very good pictures that all found a use for him.
Movies (17)
- Twelve Monkeys (1995)
- Primal Fear (1996)
- Bad Boys II (2003)
- Undisputed (2002)
- Carlito's Way (1993)
- Larry Crowne (2011)
- Gladiator (1992)
- Bullet to the Head (2012)
- Selena (1997)
- Dear God (1996)
- Into the Deep (2025)
- The Sunchaser (1996)
- Boys on the Side (1995)
- Mistrial (1996)
- Homicide: The Movie (2000)
- Love the Hard Way (2003)
- Daybreak (1993)
TV (10)
Where to start with Jon Seda
Watch The Pacific for him even if war miniseries are not your thing. Basilone gets the clearest arc in a series that otherwise keeps changing subject, and the stateside stretch is the acting high point of Seda's career.
Selena is the softer introduction, a warm supporting turn in a film everybody else remembers for its lead. For the procedural work, Homicide: Life on the Street is the good version and Chicago P.D. is the popular one, both of them him doing exactly what network drama needs, competently, for years. The 1990s film parts are tiny and the films are not: Twelve Monkeys, Carlito's Way and Primal Fear all give him a small role and he holds his own in each. Undisputed is there if the boxing is what drew you.