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Joe Cobden

Highest Rated: 80% Mean Dreams (2016)

Lowest Rated: 31% The Vow (2012)

Birthday: Oct 7, 1978

Birthplace: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Theater provided the springboard for Canadian actor-director Joe Cobden, who parlayed his talents into a diverse career that included appearances in features like "Arrival" (2017), Canadian and American television series, and a string of unique, music-driven short films that he directed and wrote. Born October 7, 1978 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he was one of three children by his parents, journalist Michael Cobden and his wife, Jane, a social worker. Cobden came to performing through busking, which he discovered as a child while attending a festival devoted to street performers. By the age of 11, he had worked up his own busking act, which took him to festivals throughout Canada and Europe. After graduating high school, Cobden auditioned for Concordia University's theater program, and soon fell in love with theater. Stage soon became his primary focus, and he soon became a staple of theater in Montreal, where he became the first English-speaking actor to win the prestigious Les Masques award, and Toronto. Cobden's screen acting career began in 2000 with a minor role in the TNT drama "Nuremberg" (2000), and he soon found steady work in Canadian productions, as well as Hollywood efforts lensed there, including George Clooney's "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" (2000), which cast him as Murray Langston, a.k.a. "The Unknown Comic," Roland Emmerich's disaster epic "The Day After Tomorrow" (2004) and "The Aviator" (2004), Martin Scorsese's biopic of Howard Hughes. He was also a regular performer on Canadian television series like the spy thriller "Angela's Eyes" (CBC, 2006) and the medical drama "Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures" (Movie Central Network, 2010- ). In 2008, Cobden teamed with Benjamin Steiger Levine to make his directorial debut with "Sigh," a charming short about a supermarket stock boy's romantic longings that paid tribute to Hollywood musicals. He would direct seven more short films between 2010 and 2016, which touched on light comic subjects - in "Seven Sins: Pride" (2011), a director plays on actors' vulnerabilities by auditioning them through a one-way mirror - and weightier fare like "Help" (2009), which explored perception and expectation through the simple act of a black South African asking a white countryman (Cobden) to assist with his wheelchair. During this period, Cobden also maintained a busy schedule of theater work and appearances in major features, including "The Vow" (2012), "X-Men: Apocalypse" (2016) and "Arrival" (2017) as well as recurring roles on series like "The Art of More" (Crackle, 2015- ) and the acclaimed Canadian dramas "This Life" (CB, 2015-) and "Bellevue" (CBC/WGN, 2017- ), playing a priest in a small town embroiled in a series of killings. During this busy period - which also found Cobden providing the voices for more than 50 characters on the animated series "Knuckleheads" (Teletoon, 2016-2017) - he also continued to mine music and dance for his own directorial efforts, including "Vive La Canadienne" (2012), a fight set to music in which a woman defends her boyfriend from thugs, and "Cycles" (2016), in which Cobden also plays a man contending with the grief of a lost relationship through dance. He also drew praise for a series of elaborate and occasionally surreal 12-second reviews of Los Angeles-area restaurants for Yelp he co-directed with director Dave Green; the reviews, compiled on the pair's Instagram account, Toothpix, became a hit on social media.

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Highest rated movies

80% 56% Mean Dreams Watchlist
62% 64% Beneath the Harvest Sky
Watchlist
51% 43% Devil
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50% 63% Suddenly Naked
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47% 43% Allure Watchlist
44% 20% Hollywood North
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44% 47% Blindness
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31% 63% The Vow
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53% Swindle
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49% The Hound of the Baskervilles
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Filmography

Movies

Credit
47% 43% Allure Benjamin (Character) - 2017
No Score Yet No Score Yet Sleeper Arthur Stern (Character) - 2017
80% 56% Mean Dreams Elbert Ford (Character) - 2016
No Score Yet No Score Yet Cycles Unknown (Character),
Director,
Screenwriter,
Producer,
Executive Producer,
Film Editing
- 2016
62% 64% Beneath the Harvest Sky Mr. Soucy (Character) $28.1K 2013
No Score Yet No Score Yet Border Informant Agent Carlyle (Character) - 2013
31% 63% The Vow Jim (Character) $125.0M 2012
No Score Yet No Score Yet Vive La Canadienne Unknown (Character),
Director,
Screenwriter,
Producer
- 2012
No Score Yet No Score Yet Peepers Steve Sherman (Character) - 2010
No Score Yet No Score Yet I Heart Doomsday Amnesia expert (Character) - 2010
51% 43% Devil Dwight (Character) $33.6M 2010
No Score Yet 12% Carny Rogers (Character) - 2009
44% 47% Blindness Policeman (Character) $3.1M 2008
No Score Yet 42% The American Trap Jeffrey Cohen (Character) - 2008
44% 20% Hollywood North Howard Atkins (Character) - 2003
No Score Yet 53% Swindle Junior (Character) - 2002
No Score Yet 50% Gleason Coleman Jacoby (Character) - 2002
No Score Yet 86% Summer Miller (Character) - 2002
50% 63% Suddenly Naked Patrick McKeating (Character) - 2001
No Score Yet 49% The Hound of the Baskervilles Perkins (Character) - 2000

TV

Credit
72% 74% Three Pines Hayden Smith (Character) 2022
91% 87% Suits Jeremy Stiller (Guest Star) 2018
85% 90% Modern Family Tourist (Guest Star) 2016
30% 67% The Art of More Unknown (Guest Star) 2015
No Score Yet 97% Artful Detective Gideon Turner (Character) 2012
No Score Yet No Score Yet Living in Your Car Unknown (Character) 2011
No Score Yet No Score Yet Angela's Eyes Dozer (Character) 2006