Terry O'Quinn

Early life

O'Quinn was born at War Memorial Hospital in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, one of 11 siblings, and grew up in nearby Newberry, Michigan. He is of Irish descent, and was raised Roman Catholic. He attended Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, and the University of Iowa in Iowa City. He changed his surname from Quinn to O'Quinn as another registered actor already had the name Terrance Quinn.

In the 1970s he came to Baltimore to act in the Center Stage production of Tartuffe. He remained at Center Stage for some years and often appeared with the late Tana Hicken, most notably as Benedick to her Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. He was cast in his first movie role Heaven's Gate, but it required horse riding. O'Quinn took riding lessons from Lori Binkley at Wood Gait Farm in northwest Baltimore County. He took on the role of Captain Minardi in Heaven's Gate, a Western that starred a slew of big names like Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, Jeff Bridges and John Hurt. The movie failed, and is one of the biggest box-office bombs of all time: grossing $3 million on a $44 million budget. However out of the experience O'Quinn married his wife Lori in 1979. They have sons Oliver and Hunter.

Terry and Lori legally separated in 2010, and they divorced shortly thereafter. He now resides in Virginia with his girlfriend, Kate Baldwin.

Career

O'Quinn began acting in the 1970s during his time at Central Michigan University. He not only was an actor but also playwright/director. He wrote and directed the musical Orchestrina. This musical featured five main characters: The Man (played by Jeff Daniels), The Boy (Harold Downs), The Woman (Ann O'Donnell), The Girl (Debbie Penwarden), and The Drunk (James Hilliker), plus a female and a male chorus. He was roommates at CMU with actor Brad Slaight.

Starting in 1980, O'Quinn has appeared in various feature films such as Silver Bullet, Tombstone, Heaven's Gate, Young Guns, alongside Rutger Hauer in Blind Fury, and as Howard Hughes in The Rocketeer.

O'Quinn also appeared in the Canadian horror movie, Pin (1988) alongside British-born Canadian actor, David Hewlett.

His early television roles include guest appearances on Miami Vice (episode "Give a Little, Take a Little"), Moonlighting, Star Trek: The Next Generation (episode "The Pegasus"), The Twilight Zone (1985 revival; episode "Chameleon"), Homicide: Life on the Street (episode "Hate Crimes"), a recurring role on Earth 2, and a recurring role as Rear Admiral Thomas Boone on JAG as well as Colonel Will Ryan in episode 15 of season 1 on the JAG spin-off series, "NCIS (TV series)" (episode "Enigma").

Around 1995, O'Quinn made guest appearances in The X-Files and Harsh Realm, produced by Chris Carter, who also cast him in the film The X-Files: Fight The Future and then once again in the final season. In 1996 O'Quinn started acting in the television series Millennium as Peter Watts, also produced by Chris Carter. O'Quinn held this role for all three seasons of the series. O'Quinn holds the distinction of having played four different characters within the extended X-Files/Millennium continuum (the two shows being classed together since both Lance Henriksen's character of Frank Black and Charles Nelson Reilly's character of Jose Chung have appeared in both shows).

The Stepfather films

O'Quinn made his breakthrough by appearing as the deranged serial-killing title character in The Stepfather. His performance was praised by film critic Roger Ebert, from the Chicago Sun Times, who commented: "'The Stepfather' has one wonderful element: Terry O'Quinn's performance". O'Quinn was nominated for both a Saturn Award and an Independent Spirit Award for his performance. A sequel was released, two years after the first movie, but it was not as much of a success as the first movie. In the first film, O'Quinn plays the role of a deranged serial killer going by the name "Jerry Blake" (his character's real name and identity are never revealed to the audience), who is obsessed with having the ideal family. When the widowed mother and daughter do not comport with his expectations, he spirals into a spell of madness and attempts to brutally murder them. In the second, he escapes from the asylum in which he is placed and steals the identity of a man named Gene Clifford after reading his obituary in a local newspaper. It grossed almost a million dollars less at the box office. It was never explained why O'Quinn was not in the third installment of the series, in which the stepfather character was portrayed by Robert Wightman.

O'Quinn was approached by director of the 2009 reboot of The Stepfather, Nelson McCormick, to make a cameo appearance in the film, but according to the producers O'Quinn turned down the offer.

Lost

After a string of recurring appearances on Alias (2002–2003), as the FBI Director Kendall, O'Quinn became a favorite of television producer J.J. Abrams. Following a seven-episode guest run on The West Wing in 2003–2004, O'Quinn received a call from Abrams indicating that the producer wanted to cast him in his new television drama Lost without any audition. In 2005 O'Quinn received an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama for his work as John Locke on the series Lost. O'Quinn admitted on the TV Guide Channel that he did not have much faith in Lost at first, calling it "The Mysterious Gilligan's Island of Dr. Moreau". The show, however, became one of the most popular on television, and on September 16, 2007 he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series for his role, and was nominated again for an Emmy for the role in 2010, which he did not win. In a Tv.com interview O'Quinn commented that the reason he felt comfortable playing this character is because he's a bit like him.

2010–present

O'Quinn has made a number of television appearances since Lost. From 2012–2013, O'Quinn starred in the short-lived series 666 Park Avenue as Gavin Doran. In 2012, he appeared in the second season of Falling Skies.

In 2016, it was announced that O'Quinn would be joining the second season of Secret and Lies.