Michael Chiklis

At 61 years old, Michael Chiklis has this physical status:

Michael Charles Chiklis (born August 30, 1963) is an American actor, director and television producer. He is perhaps best known for his role as LAPD Detective Vic Mackey on the FX police drama The Shield, for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.

He is also known for playing Commissioner Tony Scali on the ABC police drama The Commish, The Thing in two Fantastic Four films, and Jim Powell on the ABC science-fiction comedy-drama No Ordinary Family.

Additionally, he co-starred as Vincent Savino in the CBS crime drama Vegas.

In 2014 Chiklis joined the cast of American Horror Story for its fourth season, American Horror Story: Freak Show.

The following year he was cast as Nathaniel Barnes, in the second season of Gotham, as a series regular.

Early life

Chiklis was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. His mother, Katherine (née Vousboukis), is a hospital administrative aide, and his father, Charlie Chiklis, runs a hair/beauty salon. Chiklis has been described as having inherited his acting ability from his mother. His father is a second-generation Greek American (his paternal ancestors came from Lesbos), and his mother is of Greek and Irish descent. Chiklis grew up in Andover, Massachusetts and began entertaining his family with celebrity imitations when he was 5 years old. As a child, Chiklis appeared in regional theater productions and became a member of the Actors' Equity Association at age 13. In the ninth grade, he portrayed Hawkeye Pierce in Andover High School's production of M*A*S*H. He graduated from Boston University College of Fine Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts.

Personal life

Chiklis married Michelle Epstein on June 21, 1992, and they have two daughters: Autumn, born on October 9, 1993, and Odessa, born on March 26, 1999. Autumn played Vic Mackey's daughter Cassidy on The Shield.

A lifelong comic book fan, Chiklis rarely turns down an autograph request from children. According to the DVD commentary for the Fantastic Four film, he has become hoarse from performing The Thing's voice so many times.

Chiklis is a fan of both the Boston Red Sox and the Boston Bruins, was interviewed for the HBO documentary the Curse of the Bambino about the Red Sox's long struggle to win the World Series, and narrated the video introduction of the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX.

Chiklis is also an accomplished musician, specializing in drums and vocals, but also playing guitar and bass. He is a member of several performing bands in the Boston area such as The Surgeon General, Best Kept Secret, and Double Talk. He has starred in and produced films through his own production company, Extravaganza.

In 2011, Chiklis and his band MCB released their first single "Til I Come Home", a tribute song to the soldiers overseas. The song has been critically acclaimed worldwide and was used in his TV series No Ordinary Family in 2011. MCB's prior music includes another single, "Make Me High", written for the independent film High School (2010), starring Chiklis, Adrien Brody, Colin Hanks, and Matt Bush; the single was released in spring 2011.

Following his stint on American Horror Story: Freak Show, Chiklis told Larry King that he did not enjoy working on the show: "That was one of the darkest years of my career. It was, I think, it's one thing to do a horror film in the context of like two months or something like that, but to live in that for six months it just became, I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm an empathetic person, and I just sometimes start to take things on. But it was so dark, and it was so nasty."

On the January 12, 2021 episode of The Talk, Chiklis revealed his passion for the martial arts, and stated that he had recently attained the rank of yellow belt in karate.

Chiklis has participated in celebrity Texas hold 'em tournaments to benefit comedian Brad Garrett's charity foundation, Maximum Hope. Chiklis has worked closely with many different charities over the years including The Children's Lifesaving Foundation, Alzheimer's Association, Autism Speaks and the Revlon Run Walk.

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Career

Chiklis migrated to Brooklyn, New York, and was cast as John Belushi in the controversial biopic Wired (1989). The film was panned in general and floated at the box office, but Chiklis' appearance as Belushi (one of his idols) was highly lauded. He appeared in several well-known television shows, including Miami Vice, B.L. In such films as Nixon as well as in bit parts, Stryker, Wise, L.A. Law, Murphy Brown, and Seinfeld.

On ABC, Chiklis' first success was in The Commish, a police comedy/drama that ran from 1991 to 1996. Anthony "Tony" J. Scali, a police commissioner in a small city in upstate New York, was played by Chiklis. Chiklis appeared in the short-lived NBC sitcom Daddio after The Commish.

Chiklis recalled Rob Becker in the Broadway one-man show Defending the Caveman, taking on the role from January 1997 to the show's closing in June 1997.

Chiklis wanted to reimagine his image after playing Curly Howard in the television series The Three Stooges (2000). He spent six months on a rigorous workout program and shaved his head with his wife's help. He arrived at his audition for The Shield, looking nothing like the Commish's pudgy, friendly appearance. Chiklis won over creator Shawn Ryan and nabbed the leading role of the show's anti-hero, LAPD Detective Vic Mackey. For the role, he received the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series. Chiklis also received the Golden Globe Award for Best Achievement by an Actor in a Television Series-Drama. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama Series between 2004 and 2005, but he did not win. Chiklis later recalled his appearance as Vic Mackey in the Robot Chicken episode "Monstourage"; the skit involved Mackey's mistakenly moving locations with Ben Grimm.

In the English dub of Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away and Roman/King Webster's direct-to-video film The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina, Chiklis has performed in a number of voice roles, including Chihiro's father, Akio, in the English dub of Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away and Thumbelina. He has appeared in several episodes of Family Guy as well as appeared in numerous episodes of The Animated Series.

In 2005, he appeared in Fantastic Four (2005) as Thing and reprised his role in its sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. If ever a Fantastic Four film were made, a fan of the comic book series, he'd dreamed of being the character. Chiklis was often praised for his role in a film that otherwise received mixed reviews. His wife visited him on set during the filming but was unaware that he would be wearing his full bodysuit and makeup as The Thing; she was completely unprepared to see him like that, was very sad, and she had to be led from the set in order to collect herself.

Chiklis portrays the United States Secretary of Defense in the film Eagle Eye (2008).

Chiklis is releasing a series at FX about a similar investment strategy following the Bernie Madoff controversy. The initiative, called House of Cards, concerns a group behind an elaborate scam similar to the Madoff one. Chiklis had been constructing the scheme since being abused by a Ponzi scheme themselves in February 2008. With Chiklis intending to executive produce but not actor, cards will likely center on the program's leader.

Chiklis appeared in ABC's No Ordinary Family, which premiered on September 28, 2010 as part of the 2010–11 television season and ended in April, 2011. He has also appeared in the CBS Crime drama Las Vegas.

In March 2014, Chiklis was cast in American Horror Story: Freak Show, season 4 of the FX anthology series.

Chiklis appeared in a small way in 2014 at the end of the FX series Sons of Anarchy. In the episode "Rose Red," he appears first as a trucker who is on her way to her father at a truck stop. In the series finale, he also plays a truck driver.

Captain Nathaniel Barnes appeared in Gotham in 2015. His character developed a similar "Strike Force" during Chiklis' time on The Shield.

Chiklis' debut of INFLUENCE in September was his first solo album since being born in September 2016. At his own Extravaganza Music Studio, he wrote and produced the album.

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