Why Rex From Love Hard Looks So Familiar
The streaming world has plenty of great holiday movies to dig into, with Netflix bringing some solid Christmas classics to the table every year. This year, the streamer is gearing up to bring audiences "Love Hard," which will premiere on November 5. The film is a romantic comedy about a young woman (Nina Dobrev) who travels from Los Angeles to the East Coast for the holidays to meet a man she met online, only to discover that he has catfished her. Apart from Dobrev, the film's cast includes Jimmy O. Yang, Mikaela Hoover, and a particularly notable actor in the role of Rex.
If Rex seems familiar, that's because he is portrayed by actor Lochlyn Monroe. A well-known face in Hollywood since the late 1980s, Monroe has established a long IMDb list of credits to his name. As such, there's a good chance that you may have seen him in plenty of films and television series over the years, including some of these greatest hits from his filmography.
He spoofed slashers in Scary Movie
Lochlyn Monroe has plenty of comedies to his credit from every era of his career. In fact, one of the most beloved of the bunch is his performance of Greg Phillipe in the satire "Scary Movie." A clear take on the jock stereotype seen in countless slasher films over the years, Greg is impulsive and quick to anger, possessing a childish personality that easily gets him into trouble – and eventually gets him killed.
Like many of the performances in the "Scary Movie" franchise, Monroe's performance as Greg Phillippe is a direct riff on a more straightforward slasher movie performance from the 1990s. Specifically (and if the last name wasn't enough of a giveaway), his performance is a satire of Ryan Phillippe's performance as Barry Cox in "I Know What You Did Last Summer." That said, Monroe very much makes the role his own, and while he has yet to return to the "Scary Movie" franchise following the series' first outing, he remains one of its early standouts.
He was killed by Jason in Freddy vs. Jason
After lampooning the slasher genre in "Scary Movie," Lochlyn Monroe got a bit more serious (although not too serious) just two years later when "Freddy vs. Jason" hit the big screen. A landmark moment for many horror fans waiting to see the two duke it out on the big screen, the film saw Freddy Krueger resurrect Jason Voorhees and turn him loose on Elm Street in order to generate fear among the town's residents who had chosen to forget about Freddy to take away his power. In the film, Monroe portrays Scott Stubbs, a police officer who decides to dig deeper into the killings and aligns himself with the teens Freddy and Jason are hunting.
Alas, things don't go very well for Stubbs in "Freddy vs. Jason." Just as quickly as he forms an alliance with the core group of kids, he is just as quickly taken out of the equation when he has a run-in with Mr. Voorhees. The result? Stubbs finds himself electrocuted to death by the Crystal Lake-based killer.
He was an FBI agent in White Chicks
Following the smash success of his comedic performance in "Scary Movie," Lochlyn Monroe went on to appear in numerous other comedies. One of the most influential and long-lasting of the bunch is the Wayans Brothers' 2004 comedy "White Chicks." Marlon and Shawn Wayans portray two FBI agents who go undercover as white women to solve a kidnapping mystery in the comedic crime caper. In the film, Monroe portrays another FBI agent who teams up with the two leads to thwart the plot. The Wayans were also the creative forces behind "Scary Movie," so it's clear that they wanted to bring Monroe along following their prior collaboration.
"White Chicks" was poorly received by critics upon its release. However, hindsight has been good to the film, and it has slowly but surely grown to become regarded as a modern cult classic. As such, rumors of a sequel to "White Chicks" have swirled for years but have never been confirmed. If a sequel does materialize, audiences will have to wait and see if Monroe returns to the fold as well. You can still watch the original, though, on streaming platforms.
He fought Starling City's heroes on Arrow
Lochlyn Monroe has appeared in numerous big and small screen franchises over the years playing both heroes and villains. One of his most interesting smaller roles to date was his one-episode arc as Captain Stein in the Season 2 episode of "Arrow" titled "Birds of Prey." In the episode, Huntress returns to Starling City and takes hostages on a quest to murder her father. Amid the chaos, Monroe plays the role of Captain Stein, a Starling City SWAT officer who takes matters into his own hands in an attempt to bring down not only Huntress but also The Canary a.k.a Sara Lance and The Arrow. However, Stein is thwarted in a final confrontation when Quentin Lance arrives to save Oliver Queen.
"Birds of Prey" was a landmark episode of "Arrow" for a number of reasons. For starters, it was one of the earliest episodes that proved the series could build stories around its female heroes, which paved the way for Sara Lance to spin-off to "Legends of Tomorrow." Additionally, "Birds of Prey" was the last canonical appearance of Huntress in the series. Through it all, Monroe's Stein stood out as a prime example of how the DC series could create fantastic one-off villains who have questionable-yet-understandable morality.
He played Betty's father on Riverdale
Lochlyn Monroe's tenure within The CW roster of featured players didn't end with his role as Captain Stein in "Arrow" back in 2014. The actor eventually went on to an even bigger role on the network with a long-running tenure on "Riverdale," the CW's unexpectedly bizarre take on the "Archie" comics series. In the series, Monroe portrayed Hal Cooper, the father of Lilli Reinhart's Betty Cooper and a frequent antagonist. Though initially portrayed as a loving father, the series eventually reveals Hal's true nature as the Black Hood serial killer.
Monroe's time on "Riverdale" was seemingly cut short when Hal Cooper was killed in Season 3. However, the actor has reprised his role numerous times in subsequent seasons through flashbacks and dream sequences. As such, while the character is canonically gone, but considering how weird "Riverdale" can get with its storytelling, there is always the chance that audiences may see him again.