James Le Gros

In the 1990s, James LeGros built a career that paralleled the track of independent cinema, becoming a go-to actor for both lead and supporting parts in some of the signature indie films of the decade. LeGros stuck his foot in Hollywood's door in the mid-1980s, his blond, square-jawed countenance often netting him one-off television jobs as young toughs or other sundry low-lifes. After landing his first feature with the notorious sci-fi bomb "Solarbabies" (1987) and his first lead role in the equally maligned horror outing "Phantasm II" (1988), LeGros would find a niche in the less-monied quarters of the filmmaking world, beginning with the Gus Van Sant film "Drugstore Cowboy" (1989) and building into one of the most prolific indie careers in the business. He would largely figure into the existentialist meanderings of "Generation X" films, as seen in the likes of "Singles" (1992), "Where the Day Takes You" (1992), "Floundering" (1994) and "The Low Life" (1995), and hit his stride as an entitled superstar slumming in an indie film for the street cred in "Living in Oblivion" (1995). In 2000, he transitioned into television, joining the cast of "Ally McBeal" (Fox, 1997-2002), which would put him on a track for an intermittent TV career, highlighted by the Showtime series "Sleeper Cell" (2005), the NBC drama "Mercy" (2009-2010), lavish HBO period miniseries "Mildred Pierce" (2011) and critically-acclaimed cable series "Justified" (FX 2010-14). A longtime indie darling and slacker-stereotype specialist, LeGros' body of work bore out his capacity to play everything from hero to heel across nearly every genre of film and television.