Kevin J. O'Connor (actor)

Kevin James O'Connor^[1] (born November 15, 1963) is an American actor.

O'Connor is known for portraying character roles in major studio films such as There Will Be Blood, The Mummy, Clive Barker's Lord of Illusions, F/X2 and Van Helsing. He is a favorite of writer/director Stephen Sommers, who usually casts him in his films.

Life and career

Kevin J. O'Connor was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of James O'Connor, a retired Chicago police officer, and Patricia Connelly, a teacher. Kevin also has a brother, Christopher O'Connor (a Southside school teacher). In 1988, he was married to Jane Elizabeth Unrue.^[2] O'Connor trained for the stage at the DePaul/Goodman School of Drama, before making his big-screen debut as the high school rebel, Michael Fitzsimmons, in Francis Ford Coppola's Peggy Sue Got Married (1986). His next major part was quizzical newspaper reporter Taggerty Hayes in the HBO miniseries Tanner '88. He portrayed a young Ernest Hemingway in the 1988 film The Moderns, had a small role in 1989's Steel Magnolias and a featured role in 1994's erotic thriller Color of Night, which starred Bruce Willis and Jane March.

O'Connor worked with writer/director Stephen Sommers on the 1998 science-fiction adventure Deep Rising. He subsequently appeared in Sommers' projects The Mummy, where he played the cowardly, materialistic, multilingual Beni, and Van Helsing, in which he played Count Dracula's devious servant (and Dr. Frankenstein's former assistant) Igor.

He had a key supporting role in There Will Be Blood as Henry, the "brother" of Daniel Day-Lewis's oil man, Daniel Plainview.

O'Connor also starred in John Candy's last film Canadian Bacon, as the suicidal, eccentric American, Roy Boy, with an intention to sabotage Canada.

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

• Kevin J. O'Connor at the Internet Movie Database
• Kevin J. O'Connor at AllMovie