I've worked behind the scenes on several movies -- My Girl, Matinee, The Work and the Glory -- and I've watched thousands more, and I've come to the conclusion -- and I sure hope nobody thinks I’m being too egotistical when I say this -- that my face belongs in the movies.

Maybe I should explain.

You now how when you're watching a movie, and some actor is on the screen and you say to yourself, I know that face -- where have I seen that guy before?

Well, I have one of those faces, the kind of face that invariably causes people to say “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” I usually reply, you probably saw my picture in the post office, and hope they’ll let it go at that. But no, they have to try and figure out where it is they haven’t seen me. 

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Then there are all the comparisons with famous faces. Years ago, it was George Maharis, the actor who played the sullen half of the duo that rode around in a Corvette in the TV show Route 66. I never could see the resemblance, but then none of us really knows what we look like because we’ve never seen ourselves except in two-dimensions in a mirror or photo. For most of us, not knowing what we really look like is probably a good thing.

I used to get – still get – compared to Neil Young, and that one I’ll buy. It doesn’t hurt that Neil and I are similar in so many other ways. We’ve both got Native American ancestry, we’re both about the same age, we’re both songwriters and performers, we’ve both played guitar all our lives, and we’re both instantly recognizable international stars – well, okay, no comparison is ever perfect.

I think I may have aged a little better than Neil, though, which might have something to do with the enormous quantity of mind-altering substances he’s ingested over the years. It isn’t just the needle and the damage done.

Once while I was eating at a restaurant in Fargo, ND, this guy kept staring at me to the point I was starting to get nervous. Finally, he came over and said “Sorry I was staring, but I just got done working on a movie with Bruce Willis, and you could be a stand-in for him.” I thanked him, and said “I think Ashton Kutcher’s already got that job.”

I suppose the cruelest comparison came when someone said “You look like you could be Steven Seagal – imagine me all puffed up at that comparison –‘s father.” If I had been a martial-arts expert, I would have killed him with my bare hands.

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 Personally, I remind myself of guys like Anthony Quinn or Charles Bronson. It’s not so much the resemblance as it is the fact that we have faces that aren’t exactly ugly, but certainly aren’t handsome; faces that aren’t ordinary, but aren’t memorable either. Mostly, we have inscrutable faces.

Anthony Quinn was of mixed ancestry and played every ethnicity from Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa to Jewish rebel Barabbas to Arab chieftain Auda abu Tayi. Charley Bronson was Lithuanian, but he had no trouble passing himself off as Indian or Polish or Mexican or any other ethnicity he was asked to portray.

Same with me. I could pass for an Indian or a Mexican or a Mafioso – and probably even a Jew or Arab. So if you know of anybody looking for a character with a face – or a face with character – for a role in TV or movies: Have Face, Will Travel.

Acting experience? Well, I had the lead in a couple of plays in high school, and in college, I played Will Starbuck in 110 in the Shade, the musical version of The Rainmaker, so I can sing, too. But no dancing – I won’t dance, you can’t make me.

I am very experienced at improvisation, too. In fact, my whole life has been an improvisation. And now that it’s well into the third act, I’m trying to make up a few lines for the ending – before I exit stage left.

©2009 Tom Cordle