Justin Chatwin

Chatwin's first credit is a teenage fan in Josie and the Pussycats (2001), which is about as small as a start gets. Four years later he was the son in War of the Worlds (2005), a summer blockbuster that put him in front of an audience most Canadian actors of his generation never get near, and the studio system did what it does: The Invisible (2007), then Dragonball Evolution (2009), where he played Goku in a manga adaptation that produced no sequel and a good deal of lasting ill will.

What is interesting is that he did not chase the next franchise. The 2010s went to small independent films, including the science fiction musical Bang Bang Baby (2014), which brought a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Television handed him the steadiest role of his career at the same time: Jimmy Lishman on Shameless, from 2011 to 2015, a man who spends the series under at least two names and stays the most slippery thing in a show full of liars.

Since then he has been a cartoonist in the CBS mystery American Gothic (2016), a superhero in a Doctor Who Christmas special the same year, Erik Wallace on the science fiction series Another Life, and a character actor in CHiPs (2017), Die in a Gunfight (2021) and Reagan (2024), where he plays Jack Reagan. He is a leading man who became a character actor, and he looks considerably more comfortable for it.