Tobin Bell
ALL ABOUT TOBIN BELL
Full Name: Tobin Bell
Date of Birth:7 August 1942
Place of Birth: New York City, New York, USA
Bio:
Whether you know him as Jigsaw in the wildly successful Saw movies, Nordic in The Firm or even Ted Kaczynski in Unabomber –The Real Story, Tobin Bell has displayed an uncanny – and occasionally chilling – ability to burrow deep into a character’s psyche. Tobin’s longevity and chameleon-like ability to assume any role has placed him in the upper echelon of consummate professional actors. His success as the star of the Saw movies is a fitting reward for almost 30 years spent appearing in movies and television shows, mainly in character roles.
Starting with the role of FBI agent Ernest Stokes in Mississippi Burning (1988), Tobin Bell has played a long line of interesting characters on both sides of the law: JFK conspirator David Ferrie in Ruby, Mendoza in In The Line Of Fire, the riveting Nordic in The Firm, gunfighter Dog Kelly in The Quick and the Dead, Lucian Morano in Serial Killer, a parole officer in Goodfellas, the voice of Zaragosa in DreamWorks’s Road to El Dorado, and roles in Overnight Delivery, HBO’s The Fourth Floor, Good Neighbor, Black Mask 2, Loose Cannons, Malice, and Powerplay.
Tobin is a familiar face to viewers of TV movies and dramas (though comedy fans will recognize him as Ron from Seinfeld). Tobin has been a prominent guest star on some of the most critically acclaimed and popular dramas of the last decade: as attorney Nathan Volk on the NBC drama Revelations, with Bill Pullman, Natasha McElone and John Rhys-Davies; as Peter Kingsley in five episodes of 24; as Agent Dreyer on Alias; and as Karl Storm in one of the fans’ favorite episodes of Walker: Texas Ranger. Tobin has also appeared on The West Wing, The Guardian, The Sopranos, Charmed, Once And Again, X-Files, Stargate, Silk Stalkings, ER, La Femme Nikita, NYPD Blue, Murder One, and Chicago Hope. His resume also includes the television movies-of-the-week One Hot Summer Night, Babysitter’s Seduction, Mortal Fear and Deep Red.
Tobin comes by some of his acting skill naturally; his mother is the British actress Eileen Bell. But Tobin also learned from the best, studying with Lee Strasberg and Ellen Burstyn at the New York’s Actor Studio and with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. On the New York stage Tobin has appeared at the New York Shakespeare Festival, the New York Public Theater, Ensemble Studio Theater, and Playwright’s Horizons.
Tobin was born in New York City and raised in Weymouth, Mass. As befits the star of “thinking men’s horror movies,” Tobin is a graduate of Boston University, with a master’s degree in Environmental Education from Montclair State College. Hobbies include playing the guitar, taking wildlife photographs and making frequent climbing trips to the Presidential Range of New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Also a writer, Tobin has completed several screenplays and stage plays. He is married, with two children, and splits his time between homes in New York and Los Angeles.
Trivia:
Tobin’s hobbies include playing the guitar, taking wildlife photographs, and climbing the White Mountains in New Hampshire.
Tobin graduated from Boston University.
He received a 2006 MTV Movie Award nomination for Best Villain, a 2007 MTV Movie Awards nomination for Best Villain again, and a nomination for Best Butcher in the Fuse/Fangoria Chainsaw Awards.
Tobin is the son of English actress, Eileen Bell.
Tobin donated 2 vials of his own blood to be mixed with the red ink used for 1000 posters to help promote the release of his 2006 movie, Saw III. All the proceeds made from the posters were donated to the American Red Cross.
Tobin is 6′ 1½”.
In addition to being an actor he is also a little league baseball coach.
Considers Saw II to be his favorite out of the SAW Trilogy.
Quotes:
“There are different ways of approaching roles. Some people get involved in the emotional aspects of characters.”
“I want to do anything that’s well-written, that reveals something of the human condition, that provides growth for the material as well as the actors. Great opportunity.
(about saw 2) “This emotional connection with Amanda that I think provides an interesting counter-point to the horror that the traps provide. Jigsaw is not well in Saw III. Whether he was sick in Saw II or not remains a matter of conjecture. In my own mind, in my view, he had cancer before Saw I but in Saw II you notice his hair had grown back. I haven’t said this to many people but I always felt that those machines that were attached to him so that Detective Matthews and the SWAT team would be reluctant to move him. All he needed was about ten or fifteen minutes while an ambulance was being sent for, to get the game going. Also, those machines provide a visual distraction so that Detective Matthews and the police don’t notice that the kitchen in which he’s sitting, wasn’t a kitchen at all but an elevator. So, in my view, he was in remission in Saw II but he was playing a man who was sicker than he actually was. Frankly, if he was as sick as he looked, he would have been dead after a beating like that.”
Filmography:
Tobin Bell Filmography as an Actor:
2009 Stalked
2008 Bump
2008 Highway 61
2008 Saw V
2007 Boogeyman 2
2007 Buried Alive
2007 Saw IV
2007 R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour: Don’t Think About It
2006 Saw III
2006 Saw III
2005 Revelations
2005 Saw II
2005 Saw II
2004 Saw
2002 Power Play
2002 Charmed: The Eyes Have It
2001 Alias: Mea Culpa
2001 The Killer Next Door
2001 Alias: Time Will Tell
2000 The Road to El Dorado
1999 The 4th Floor
1998 Brown’s Requiem
1998 Stargate SG-1: Enigma
1998 Best of the Best: Without Warning
1997 La Femme Nikita: Love
1996 NYPD Blue: He’s Not Guilty, He’s My Brother
1996 Unabomber: The True Story
1995 Serial Killer
1995 The Quick and the Dead
1994 ER: Day One
1994 New Eden
1994 Deep Red
1993 NYPD Blue: Personal Foul
1993 Malice
1993 Boiling Point
1993 In the Line of Fire
1993 The Firm
1993 Dead Man’s Revenge
1993 Sex, Love and Cold Hard Cash
1992 Calendar Girl, Cop, Killer? The Bambi Bembenek Story
1992 Ruby
1991 Love, Lies & Murder
1990 False Identity
1990 Loose Cannons
1990 GoodFellas
1989 Perfect Witness
1989 An Innocent Man
1988 Mississippi Burning
The Kill Point [TV Series]
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