James Remar Biography

Rugged, intense character player with average-guy good looks and a slightly squinty stare, adept at vicious, sometimes psychopathic roles. Remar gained recognition as a punk who gets chained to a park bench by a woman cop in his second film, The Warriors (1979). That same year he garnered acclaim on Broadway as Richard Gere's lover in the concentration camp drama 'Bent'. Remar subsequently kept busy primarily in features, playing gangster Dutch Schultz in Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club (1984), one of the Neanderthals in The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986), and an experienced military officer who doubts the power of Shakespeare in Renaissance Man (1994). Remar has occasionally garnered roles which highlight a more vulnerable side, such as his guitarist who gets a break in the Oscar-winning short, Session Man (1991) (TV) or his artist who falls in love with a gargoyle come to life in the best segment of the horror anthology, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990). Remar is, in fact, still best known for his galvanizing performances as a homicidal maniac escaped from prison in 48 Hrs. (1982) and as a no-nonsense cop in Drugstore Cowboy (1989). Remar sent up some of his earlier roles in the half-baked spoof Fatal Instinct (1993), as a killer released from prison out to get Armand Assante.