Biographie

Has appeared in five Coen Brothers films: Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), Le grand saut (1994), The Big Lebowski (1998) and The barber: l'homme qui n'était pas là (2001).

Attended Villanova University on a drama scholarship, graduating on the Dean's list. From there, he began a successful lengthy run on the New York stage both off and on Broadway.

Was not re-hired for the second season of Homicide (1993) because the network wanted to add a female cast member.

Christopher Guest directed Jon in a commercial for the Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey. His first Broadway job was when he was 26 years old and was hired as standby for 45-year-old Kenneth McMillan in the original production of David Mamet's "American Buffalo".

Won the Best actor OBIE award for five different performances in the 1979/1980 off-Broadway season.

You can't act alone. Use the props, the setting, the crew around you, and of course your fellow actors. Acting is like a sporting match; a tennis game, but no one should win or lose. The game's the thing!

Art is the familiar through new eyes.

Most of my life I feel I have been unicycling at the edge of the abyss! If fact, this will be the name of my book if I ever write one, or a one man stand-up routine. I have used it as the name of a collection of my musical compositions written during the ' 90s. It fits the scary journey I feel I've been on. Sometimes I have run up to the edge in life, and instead of stepping back to trying to leap over it, I find an imaginary unicycle which I've never ridden before and I jump on and take up the new ride . . . shaky and unsure . . . but ride I must!

[2011, on filming Highlander (1986)] Well, it was shot in London, so all I remember is very funky '80s London, which Christopher Lambert was the king of at the time because of his position from the Tarzan movie [Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984)]. And it was really a terrific shoot time. The director was also a lot of fun to work with. I did not get to work with Sean Connery, which is still a great regret in my life. Although we're in the same movie, I'm one degree from him. Because I was in the same film, but I didn't get to work with him because he was in the flashback sequences. I just remember it being a lot of fun to shoot both in London and in New York. We came to New York for locations as well. I didn't quite figure out what the hell was going on. It's a tough movie to figure out. And, of course, Christopher Lambert is a very interesting actor, but him playing the Scotsman is just hysterical, I think. I think the film is really a lot of fun to watch as a camp classic. I love the idea of you got so many accents. There couldn't be more accents. But one of the great gifts of that movie was getting to meet Clancy Brown, who played the bad guy. And Clancy was just a real force to be reckoned with. I remember loving Clancy as a person and loving his performance.

[2011, on Critical Condition (1987)] That was very interesting. There was a director that I had loved, Michael Apted, who'd done a great series of documentaries on these young kids growing up [the "Up" series]. I was a fan of his and I got to work with someone I totally loved, which was Richard Pryor. The amazing thing about that movie to me was that the two scenes where I meet him in prison and then there's a trial scene, the trial scene was one of the funniest scenes I've ever read. I thought it was gonna play like blockbusters. But when we got on the set, it was the first time I realized--because this is pre-my really good film work and I hadn't done that much film--when I got on the set, Richard Pryor mostly improvised the scene. So it threw me. It didn't throw me off acting-wise. I remember him turning to me and saying to me, "I'm gonna just run with this." In fact, he didn't run with it. He didn't say one line from the script. So that was a little disorienting, but the scene plays pretty well and it's kinda funny.