Kevin Corrigan

Kevin Corrigan grew up in the Bronx and was barely twenty when he turned up in GoodFellas as Michael Hill. He has been working ever since, mostly in independent film and television, and mostly in parts of five to twenty minutes that people remember far longer than the running time justifies.

The skill is a specific one: he does not sound like an actor. His delivery is flat, unhurried and faintly amused, and it makes written dialogue sound overheard rather than performed. Put him next to a broad comic performance and he becomes the anchor, which is why he lands in stoner comedies (Superbad, Pineapple Express) and crime pictures (The Departed, American Gangster) with equal ease. Directors of a certain generation have used him as a texture guy for thirty years, from Rhythm Thief and Walking and Talking through Henry Fool and Living in Oblivion.

He has had leads, and they are the best evidence for him. Big Fan in 2009 gave him a parking-attendant obsessive whose entire life is a sports radio call-in show, and Results in 2015 let him play a newly rich sad sack with real comic patience. Both drew Independent Spirit Award nominations for Best Supporting Male, the category the industry keeps him in regardless. Alongside that came five years of network sitcom as Uncle Eddie on Grounded for Life, and he has kept turning up in interesting places since, including The King of Staten Island.