Why Ron Perry From Chicago P.D. Looks So Familiar
TV creator Dick Wolf has a lot under his belt with the "One Chicago," "Law & Order," and "FBI" all going strong. One series in his long list of successes is "Chicago P.D." Following the precinct's 21st District, comprised of a patrol unit led by Trudy Platt (Amy Morton) and an intelligence unit led by Hank Voight (Jason Beghe), the series has run consistently since 2014. While the District has two solid leaders for their respective units, their chain of command is headed by a district commander. At the beginning of the series, that chair was held by District Commander Ron Perry.
Perry didn't trust Voight when he was put in charge of the Intelligence Unit. The old-school Chicago cop has never had any problem coloring outside the lines to complete a mission or bring a criminal to justice. Even though they bump heads about his tactics, his results make him too good of a cop to ignore. Eventually, Perry comes to Voight for help with his nephew, and he ends up tragically shot to death, ending his character arc.
Even though Perry didn't appear in the most number of episodes, the character gave Voight an opposite with the same goals to play off of and helped build the character for later episodes. Most viewers may have seen the actor that played Perry before, and this is why he may look familiar.
Robert Wisdom kept Sean Archer under control in Face-Off
1997 saw John Woo bring one of the most outlandish concepts for an action film to fruition in "Face/Off." The film stars John Travolta as FBI agent Sean Archer, chasing after the terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) after he murders the agent's son. In a last-ditch effort to get the information needed to stop a bomb plot, Archer assumes the identity of his rival by taking his actual face. With a plot like that, it is surprising to see that the movie scored a whopping 92% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Robert Wisdom appeared as Tito Biondi, Archer's No. 2 on the covert anti-terrorist team. He spends most of his time on-screen trying to pull Agent Archer away from the edge, acting as a voice of reason when the agent is blinded by revenge. He tries to tell Archer to go easy on the team when they were lost for a lead, he tries to stop him from his reckless actions during a shootout, and most importantly, he tries to talk him out of swapping faces with a mass murderer.
Tragically, Tito meets his end when the assumed dead Troy wakes from his coma and murders everyone who knows of the operation. In an interview with Hobo Trashcan, he spoke about what it was like working with the legendary John Woo. "I loved it," he said. "He directs action like ballet. He came up to me the first day and said, 'You make character, I make action, we make movie.' That was his whole direction. So we went for it. We worked on that film for eight months, and it was really a great project."
He was an uneasy ally on Prison Break
One of the more terrifying prospects for anyone is being wrongly convicted of a crime and going to prison. This is the core theme of Fox's "Prison Break." When Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell) is sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit, his brother Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) hatches a daring plan to break him out. Step one is getting a tattoo of the prison blueprints, and step two is robbing a bank. It only gets crazier from there.
Robert Wisdom shows up in Season 3 as Norman St. John, a Panamanian drug kingpin carrying the nickname Luchero. He becomes the leader of the inmates, someone to be feared. Luchero views Michael as a threat to his leadership, and the two become enemies when Luchero sets him up in a fight to the death. The two become uneasy allies when they encounter a common enemy and work together before Luchero is betrayed by his successor and smothered with a pillow.
Although Luchero is fictional, Wisdom revealed (via BuddyTV) that his character is based on or inspired by a number of ruthless dictators, including Benito Mussolini.
He was a disenchanted cop on The Wire
One of the most impactful series in the past 20 years is the Dominic West-led "The Wire." While most police procedural shows focus on the heroics of the police officers, this one focuses on the holes in that system and how it is failing the American people. More specifically, Black Americans. Running on HBO from 2002 until its cancellation in 2008, "The Wire" is on many lists of best shows of all time. BBC calls it the "greatest TV series of the 21st century."
Robert Wisdom appears on the series as Major Howard "Bunny" Colvin, a veteran of the Baltimore Police Department. His character has been in Baltimore as a police officer since 1974, and nothing surprises him anymore. He comes to believe that the war on drugs is a lost cause, and he pushes to segregate school kids from each other, with street kids on one side and regular students on the other. He responded candidly when asked about his character being used as a springboard for radical ideas (via Hobo Trashcan).
"I have to say, personally, my life has always been a bit of a maverick, so I do have that affinity with Bunny," Wisdom said. "It's this irresistible call, he winds up trying to reform situations. It's a very strange thing for him. He looks at a situation, and he gets these almost intuitive bursts where he says, 'If this happened and this happened, we could get something done.' All he wants to do is move the s*** 10 inches down the way."
He was an overmatched captain in The Dark Knight Rises
After "Batman and Robin" hit the screens in 1997, Batman sorely needed a re-brand. Christopher Nolan gave fans of the character exactly what they were looking for. His trilogy started in 2005 with "Batman Begins," starring Christian Bale as the titular hero going up against Liam Neeson's League of Shadows. The second installment, "The Dark Knight," hit the screens three years later and delivered a legendary performance by Heath Ledger as the Joker.
Eagle-eyed fans of Robert Wisdom would have seen him on the bridge in the third installment, "The Dark Knight Rises." The film saw an older Bruce Wayne finding a new reason to don the cowl when the city is threatened by Bane (Tom Hardy), looking to finish what the League of Shadows started nearly a decade earlier. Bane holds the city hostage and destroys all the bridges into the city, leaving one open where a confrontation happens between Captain Parker (Wisdom) and Bane's men.
It is a small appearance, but Wisdom finds a way to show that he has the ability in only a few minutes to display endless confidence in himself and his highly trained men behind him and sheer terror when he discovers that the men in front of him are deadlier than he thought.