Mitchell Whitfield
Mitchell Whitfield is an actor, born 1964.
Two of the most-replayed humiliations in American screen comedy belong to Mitchell Whitfield, and he plays both of them straight. He was Stan Rothenstein in My Cousin Vinny (1992), opposite Ralph Macchio, and Barry Farber on Friends, the ex-fiance of Rachel, a part that kept bringing him back across the show's run. Before either, he had small roles in Reversal of Fortune (1990) and Dogfight (1991).
What he does on camera is a particular flavour of anxious decency: a man being outmanoeuvred by circumstance who never gets to be the author of the joke. Sgt. Bilko, Lost & Found, Best Men and the sitcom Minor Adjustments, where he was Dr. Bruce Hampton across its short run, all use some version of it.
The voice career went the other direction entirely. As Prince Phobos on W.I.T.C.H. he is silky and unhurried; as Fixit in Transformers: Robots in Disguise he gets to play comic machinery; as Donatello in TMNT (2007) he takes on one of the most recognisable characters in American animation. Add Avra in Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, Russell Thorne in Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms, Klerm in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and preschool work in Doc McStuffins and Vampirina, and the pattern is legible: the face got him cast as the loser, the voice got him cast as everything else.
Movies (10)
TV (8)
Where to start with Mitchell Whitfield
My Cousin Vinny first, and not only because it is the best film here. Whitfield spends it doing the hardest thing a supporting actor can do in a comedy, which is stay genuinely frightened while everyone around him is being funny. Friends is the other half of the public memory, and it wears better than you would expect.
After that, go to the voice work, which is where his range actually lives. W.I.T.C.H. and Transformers: Robots In Disguise are the two to hear, one purring villainy, one comic machinery. TMNT is the biggest of the animated jobs and the most conventional. If you want the early on-camera work, Dogfight is a far better film than its reputation, and Green Lantern: Emerald Knights is a decent hour for a completist.