All Worlds Collide

Last week, I had a minor brain breakdown that managed to bring together all of my life's big loves: presidents, supporting actors, and football.

It all started while doing research for my next Presidential History feature. For every election loser I feature, I have to find the right picture to go with their section. It was then, I came across this picture of General Winfield Scott, who lost to Franklin Pierce in 1952


While I edited this image, a little worm burrowed its way into my mind. He looks like someone. It's not like I could cast a movie about General Scott, but the guy I was thinking of would definitely play him as a background character. The problem, though, is that I could not for the life of me figure out whose face was popping in my head.



Every week, I watch football with a group of friends, and somehow the conversation veered toward this problem. Or maybe I veered the conversation. While we watched the Patriots beat the Colts, we swiped through our iPads trying to place the face.

They were pushing Colm Meany pretty hard, but Chief O'Brien really wasn't who I was thinking of. It has nothing to do with logic or any sort of objective opinion. I saw that painting and a face popped in my head. Every time I tried to think about him, I just got brief glimpses of movies.

He definitely plays an FBI agent, or a cop. He's always a jerk but not a threatening jerk. He's the guy who's always throwing his weight around, and he's kind of doofy. He has our heroes in the back of his cop car as they try to explain the disaster they're trying to avert, while he tells them they don't get how much trouble they're in. Then something explodes, he realizes they're right, and he has to let them go. And for some reason, I've seen his head shot. I could not imagine how I've seen this random guy's head shot. This is the kind of problem the internet just can't solve. He's not big enough to even make IMDb's top 300 character actors.

Well beyond the point where I annoyed my football friends about this, I went home. Hours later it hit me. I've seen his head shot because he was in the Starz documentary "The Face is Familiar" that I saw on Netflix that one time. I knew I just needed to see his face, and I'd have a name. There he was, on the IMDb page. Click the link to see his face.

Daniel Roebuck
Notable Roles:

Biggs - "The Fugitive"

Lt. Buckley - "The West Wing"

Leslie Arzt - "Lost"

Detective Jensen - "Weeds"

I was so proud of myself, so I posted his picture to my friends on Facebook. They all said I was nuts. Not a single one of them saw the resemblance. To me, even seeing it side by side, it's so clear. No one else sees it. Click the link below to judge for yourself.

Side by Side Comparison
And I still have no idea what movie I was picturing in my head. That whole scenario in the cop car, I have no idea what it's from or if I just made it up. I probably just made it up.