Tom Noonan
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Offbeat character actor Tom Noonan started off his career in
various theater troupes that utilized his skills as a guitarist and
composer. A graduate from Yale's acting school, he founded the
Paradise Theatre in 1983, which was instrumental later in his growth
as an artist. Gravitating toward film and TV in the 80s, he began
appearing regularly in edgy, unsympathetic roles, most notably as
the "Tooth Fairy" serial killer in Manhunter (1986) which was the
first feature length film to introduce the infamous Hannibal Lector
character. Most of his other work at this time was solid but
unrewarding, including such looming parts in Easy Money (1983), Best
Defense (1984), The Monster Squad (1987) and RoboCop 2 (1990), so he
began to take classes in writing and directing in order to extend
himself.
In the mid-90s, by appearing in a number of mainstream parts, he was
able to finance his own first play-turned-art house film project
What Happened Was... (1994), which became the darling of the
Sundance Film Festival that year and won the Grand Jury Prize, not
to mention an Independent Spirit nomination. He filmed it in eleven
days at a cost of $300,000, and managed to edit it only hours before
the Sundance deadline. The success of the two character film, which
starred Tom and Karen Sillas as an awkward couple on their first
date, induced Tom to finance another film, The Wife (1995), based on
his Obie-winning (for writing) play "Wifey", which co-starred Tom
with Julie Hagerty, Wallace Shawn and his one-time wife Karen Young.
This film, which was warmly received at the Sundance Festival as
well, was barely released theatrically, however, as was his third
hands-on feature Wang Dang (1999). Notable 90s TV work included
roles in "The X Files" (1993) and the miniseries "Heaven & Hell:
North & South, Book III" (1994), in which he also composed the
score. The New York-based actor continues to perform as well as
teach acting at the Paradise Theatre, where many of his
plays-turned-films got off the ground. He has also written short
works of fiction.