Rocky Carroll

Three long-running network series have leaned on the same quality in Rocky Carroll: he can deliver an institutional decision as though he personally has to live with it. Born in Cincinnati in 1963, he arrived on television as Joey Emerson on the Fox comedy-drama Roc between 1991 and 1994, then spent time as Dr. Keith Wilkes on Chicago Hope.

The role that made him a fixture is NCIS Director Leon Vance, a part he has carried on the parent show and reprised on both NCIS: Los Angeles and NCIS: New Orleans. Vance is the boss, which in procedural terms usually means a man who exists to deny requests, and Carroll's contribution has been to play him as someone with his own file of griefs and compromises rather than an obstacle in a good suit. He directs as well as acts, which a credit list like this one never captures.

Before the procedural years there was a solid run of film work: Lt. Darik Westergard in Crimson Tide, Artemus St. John Saint in the boxing satire The Great White Hype, Sonny Lacks in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. He came from the stage, and the only trace of that here is his appearance as Lymon in the Piano Lesson segment of a Tony Awards retrospective.

The other Rocky Carroll, largely unnoticed by his television audience, is a busy voice actor. He is Silas Stone across the recent DC animated features, Perry White in others of them, Talon in Gargoyles and Triton in the nineties Fantastic Four cartoon.