Clancy Brown
Clarence John Brown III is an American actor and voice actor. He is known for his work as "Viking" Lofgren in Bad Boys, the Kurgan in Highlander, Byron Hadley in The Shawshank Redemption, Sgt. Zim in Starship Troopers , Mr. Krabs in SpongeBob SquarePants, Brother Justin Crowe on the HBO series Carnivàle and Kelvin Inman on the ABC series Lost. He has also provided voices for Lex Luthor, beginning with ', Doctor Neo Cortex and Uka Uka in the Crash Bandicoot video games, Hades in God of War III, Surtur in ' and Lt. Hank Anderson in .
Early life
Clancy Brown was born on January 5, 1959, in Urbana, Ohio, and had an older sister, Beth. His mother, Joyce Helen, was a conductor, composer and concert pianist. His father, Clarence J. "Bud" Brown Jr., was a newspaper publisher who helped manage the Brown Publishing Company, the family-owned newspaper business started by Clancy's grandfather, Congressman Clarence J. Brown. From 1965 to 1983, Bud Brown also served as a congressman, and later as Chairman of the Board of Brown Publishing. The family continued to operate the business until 2010.Brown graduated from St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., and Northwestern University. At St. Albans, Brown performed the role of Deputy Governor Thomas Danforth in The Crucible.
Career
Due to his height, deep voice and large frame, Brown is often cast in the roles of villains or authority figures. His career tends to alternate among mainstream television and cable; major studio and independent movies; and a large repertoire of voice work for animated and video game roles.Film roles
In Brown's first mainstream movie he was cast as Viking Lofgren alongside Sean Penn in Bad Boys the 1983 crime drama. Brown is known for his role as the Kurgan in the 1986 film Highlander, his role as Captain Byron Hadley in The Shawshank Redemption, Rawhide in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Frankenstein's monster in The Bride, Army mercenary Larry McRose in Extreme Prejudice, played a role of a band manager in Thunder Alley, vicious killer Steve in Shoot to Kill, the police officer in Michael Jackson's short movie Speed Demon, Dead Man Walking, Sheriff Gus Gilbert in Pet Sematary Two, Sergeant Zim in Starship Troopers, and Captain William Hadley in The Guardian. He also played a role in Flubber as one of the evil henchmen that get harmed by uncontrollably bouncing sports equipment. In 1989, he appeared in the action thriller Blue Steel.Brown has played prison officers in three films dealing with miscarriages of justice: the tyrannical Captain Byron Hadley in The Shawshank Redemption, the sympathetic Lt. Williams in The Hurricane, and Lt. McMannis in Last Light. In 2001, he played a magical character credited as 'The granter of wishes' in the Hallmark version of . In 2007, he played the Viking leader opposite Karl Urban in Pathfinder.
He starred in several independent films in 2008: The Burrowers, screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2008, and released in the United States on DVD in April 2009, and The Twenty. He appeared in Steven Soderbergh's 2009 film The Informant! opposite Matt Damon in which he played an attorney. He also portrayed Alan Smith in Samuel Bayer's 2010 remake of the horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street. In 2011, he starred in Cowboys & Aliens alongside Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde. He was cast as the voice of The Goon in the animated feature film. He also starred as Albert Marconi in the film adaptation of the David Wong novel John Dies at the End, directed by Don Coscarelli.
Television roles
Brown was a series regular on the science fiction series Earth 2 from 1994 to 1995, playing the role of John Danziger. Brown was notable as the sinister preacher Brother Justin Crowe in the HBO series Carnivàle. Though the series only ran for two seasons, Carnivàle has attained a cult popularity and his performance was applauded by critics for showcasing a new side to his acting talents. He also starred in the Showtime production In the Company of Spies and the HBO film Cast a Deadly Spell. As conservative United States Attorney General Jock Jeffcoat, he was one of the primary antagonists in seasons three and four of the Showtime series Billions.He has also made many guest appearances on various television series including ER, the episode "Desert Crossing" as Zobral, Lost as Kelvin Joe Inman, and former baseball player Rudy Blue on The Riches. Brown also appeared as the frontiersman Simon Kenton, the key to America's westward expansion, in the 2000 Kentucky Educational Television production "A Walk with Simon Kenton". Kenton resembled Brown in stature and is buried in Brown's hometown. Brown most recently appeared as Hart Sterling, founding partner of fictional law firm Sterling, Huddle, Oppenheim & Craft in ABC's The Deep End. He also guest starred on the Leverage series episode "The Gone Fishin Job" and on The Dukes of Hazzard sixth-season episode "Too Many Roscos". Currently, he appears on The CW's TV production of The Flash in the recurring guest-star role of General Wade Eiling. He has also portrayed Ray Schoonover in the Daredevil episodes "Guilty as Sin" and "The Dark at the End of the Tunnel".
Voice-over roles
As a voice-over actor, Brown has appeared in several video games, usually playing an antagonistic character. He lends his voice to several of the crystallized dragons in the PlayStation game "Spyro the Dragon". He voiced the corrupt Baron Praxis in the PlayStation 2 video game Jak II; Doctor Neo Cortex and Uka Uka in a number of the Crash Bandicoot video games; Montross in '; Hades in God of War III; Thrall in the cancelled video game '; Scourgelord Tyrannus in '; and the conniving Alderman Richard Hughes in the Xbox 360 game Saints Row; Lt. Anderson in ', released in May 2018; including Run Like Hell, PS2 and Xbox.Dag'Rek Contrary to popular belief, he was not the voice actor to the popular operator "Maestro" in the 2015 First Person shooter Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege.For animated television series, he voiced several characters in the series Gargoyles; Tanuki Gonta in the English language dub of Pom Poko ; Raiden on the animated series '; a Hessian trooper in The Night of the Headless Horseman ; billionaire Maxmilian Speil in '; and five of the six members of Legion Ex Machina in Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot.
Since 1999, he has played the role of Mr. Krabs of SpongeBob SquarePants. From 2000 to 2005, he played several roles on Jackie Chan Adventures. He also voiced Vice-Principal Pangborn in All Grown Up!, Barkmeat in Catscratch, Otto in Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!, which also stars fellow SpongeBob co-star Tom Kenny, who voices Gibson, and Gorrath in Megas XLR.
For Disney, he has played roles such as the Dark Dragon in ', the Ugly Bald Guy in the movie ', as well as Undertow in ', and he also made a guest appearance in the Kim Possible episode "Oh, No! Yono" where he played the titular character. In the Avatar franchise, Brown voiced corrupt Dai Li leader Long Feng in ' in 2006 and top gangster Yakone in The Legend of Korra in 2012.
He guest-starred in as the Demon Cat and the narrator for the opening and closing quotes in the episode.
Brown also voices Destro in '; Jeff Fischer's biological father in American Dad!; Grune the Destroyer in the ThunderCats reboot; and the recurring role of Agent Silas in '.
From 2011 to 2013, Brown voiced Savage Opress, Count Dooku's new apprentice and Darth Maul's brother, in .
He starred as Chris "Dogpound or Rahzar" Bradford, Shredder's top henchman, in the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles television series.
From the third quarter of 2014, Brown began doing voice-overs as the main talent for Chevy truck national and regional television commercials.
On March 21, 2016, began voicing a new character to the series, Red Death, a parody of the Marvel villain Red Skull, in The Venture Brothers episode "Red Means Stop". He continued this role in season 7, and is signed to appear in season 8, currently in development.
DC Universe roles
Brown's best-known role is perhaps as the villainous Lex Luthor, a role that he played for over twelve years. He first voiced Luthor in the DCAU, starting with ' and reprised his role in the subsequent animated series Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. He also voiced the character in the video game ' as well as The Batman cartoon series. Brown later again played Luthor in the 2009 animated film '. He also voiced a character under the name Rohtul in '. Brown once again voiced Lex in the video games ' and '. From all these vocal appearances, Brown has played Lex Luthor longer than any other actor in history, including his own Justice League co-star Michael Rosenbaum.Brown is also known for his voice work as villains in various DC animated series, movies, television shows, and video games: Charlie "Big Time" Bigelow on Batman Beyond, Trident on the Teen Titans cartoon series, Mr. Freeze and Bane on The Batman cartoon series, Per Degaton in ', Parallax in the live-action Green Lantern film, King Faraday in the Young Justice cartoon series, and General Zartok in '. He appeared on The CW's The Flash recurring in the first season as General Wade Eiling.