Callum Keith Rennie (born September 14, 1960) is a British-born Canadian actor best known for his roles in Battlestar Galactica and Californication.
He played Detective Brad Halloran in Jigsaw.
Early Life[]
Callum Keith Rennie was born to Scottish parents in Sunderland, County Durham. When he was four years old, the family emigrated to Canada. Rennie was raised in middle-class Edmonton, Alberta, as the second of three boys. He graduated from Strathcona High School, where he met and befriended Bruce McCulloch from The Kids in the Hall. He dropped out of college and took up all sorts of odd jobs instead, leaving Edmonton for brief stays in Vancouver and Toronto before eventually settling in Vancouver. After struggling with alcoholism in his youth, Rennie managed to get his addiction under control at the age of 33 and was finally able to commit to acting.
Career[]
Working at the campus radio of the University of Alberta led Rennie to discover acting at the age of 25. He started his career on stage, performing at the A.B.O.P. Theatre in Edmonton in Amerika, a play adapted from Franz Kafka's eponymous novel, and followed with the critically acclaimed American Buffalo during the Edmonton International Fringe Festival. After attending Bruhanski Theatre Studio in Vancouver, he had his first professional theatrical role in the Touchstone Theatre production of Sally Clark's Lost Souls and Missing Persons in 1989. Following this performance, he was invited to the Shaw Festival, where he appeared in Man and Superman and Arthur Wing Pinero's comic play Trelawny of the Wells in 1990.
Rennie's first appearance on screen was in the indie Canadian film Purple Toast, filmed in 1990 and released in 1993. Also in 1993, he began to take minor roles in television series, including Highlander, Forever Knight, and the revamped version of The Outer Limits. Rennie's profile within the Canadian industry was heightened during this period by leading roles in the television films Paris or Somewhere in 1994 and For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down in 1996. Due to several disagreements during the production of the latter film, Rennie vowed never to work for the CBC again, though he has remained a staunch supporter of the Canadian industry as a whole. After his first appearance on The X-Files, he was offered the role of Alex Krycek but turned it down because he did not want to commit to a television series back then. His career gained momentum quickly, and Rennie received roles in Canadian films such as Mina Shum's drama Double Happiness, for which he was nominated for a Genie Award for Best Supporting Actor.
His most prominent early roles were as guitar player Billy Tallent in Bruce McDonald's Hard Core Logo in 1996 and as detective Stanley Raymond Kowalski in the third and fourth seasons of the CTV series Due South, which aired in over 150 countries. The Canadian band Billy Talent is named after his Hard Core Logo character. As for his part in Due South, it has been said that his "disaffected intensity and hungover good looks" added an edge to the series.
Rennie was then seen as the convenience store guru Newbie in Twitch City and Detective Bobby Marlowe in the award-winning series Da Vinci's Inquest. His interpretation of sex marathoner Craig Zwiller in Don McKellar's Last Night earned him his first Genie Award in 1999. After a role in David Cronenberg's eXistenZ, his first international success on the big screen was his appearance as the thug Dodd in Christopher Nolan's Memento in 2000. The same year, he impersonated a chilling yet seductive drifter in Suspicious River.
With the father characters in Flower and Garnet in 2002 and Falling Angels in 2003, Rennie expanded to playing more mature roles rather than young, self-destructive rebels. He also portrayed self-controlled Inspector Wood in the period drama Torso: The Evelyn Dick Story in 2002 and appeared as the quiet dyslexic painter of Wilby Wonderful in 2004.
He has played guest roles in Canadian and US television series like Mutant X, The Dead Zone, Smallville, Supernatural, The L Word, Bionic Woman, and Harper's Island. During the same time, he has interpreted contrasting characters in movies such as The Butterfly Effect, H20, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Blade: Trinity, Lucid, Unnatural & Accidental, The Invisible, Tin Man, Normal, Silk, and The X-Files: I Want to Believe. His recurring role as the Cylon Leoben Conoy in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica from 2004 to 2009 and his portrayal of the record producer Lew Ashby throughout the second season of Californication in 2008 have earned him international recognition.
From 2009 to 2010, Rennie played Jeff Slingerland, aka Dr. Maurice Raynaud, on the ABC science fiction series Flashforward. Before the series was canceled, David Goyer, who previously directed him in Blade and The Invisible, mentioned he would be back and was slated to appear in the second season. He also appeared as Russian mobster Vladimir Laitanan in the eighth season of 24.
In the fall of 2010, he played Detective Brian Sullivan in Shattered, a series about a detective who suffers from multiple personality disorder. The series aired in Canada on Global TV and then in other countries, though not the United States. Rennie received critical acclaim for his performance and won the Gemini and Leo awards for the role in 2011. However, Shattered was not renewed for a second season.
His feature film appearances included the Canadian film Gunless, a Western comedy, as a bounty hunter on the trail of Paul Gross' Montana Kid. He also reprised his role as Billy Tallent for a short appearance in Trigger. Additionally, Rennie served as one of Trigger's executive producers. Another film, Faith, Fraud & Minimum Wage, based on Canadian playwright Josh MacDonald's play Halo, was released in December 2010.
Rennie made several television appearances in 2011, including a supporting role on The Killing as Rick Felder, Detective Sarah Linden's fiancé. He also guest-starred on Alphas, CSI: Miami, and Rookie Blue. Rennie was also cast as a series regular on the NBC series The Firm, where he played Ray McDeere, the brother of the principal character, Mitch McDeere, played by Josh Lucas. It began airing as a midseason replacement for the 2011–12 season. In 2015, Rennie was cast as a main character for the second season of Amazon's The Man in the High Castle.
Personal Life[]
Rennie likes painting and admires abstract expressionist artists such as Basquiat, Motherwell, and Pollock. An enthusiastic mountain climber in his youth, Rennie still practices various sports, including hockey and golf. He alternates between Vancouver and Los Angeles.
Filmography[]
Films[]
| Year | Title | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 1993 | Purple Toast | Tom Struck |
| 1994 | The Raffle | Floor Director |
| Frank's Cock | ||
| Double Happiness | Mark | |
| Timecop | Stranger | |
| Valentine's Day | Astronaut | |
| Still | Boyfriend | |
| 1995 | Curtis's Charm | Jim |
| 1996 | Unforgettable | Drug Dealer |
| Hard Core Logo | Billy Tallent / William Boisy | |
| Letters from Home | ||
| 1997 | Masterminds | Ollie |
| Excess Baggage | Motel Manager | |
| Men with Guns | Mamet | |
| 1998 | Last Night | Craig Zwiller |
| 1999 | eXistenZ | Hugo Carlaw |
| The Life Before This | Martin Maclean | |
| 2000 | The Highwayman | Telemarketer |
| The Last Stop | Jake | |
| Memento | Dodd | |
| Suspicious River | Gary Jensen | |
| 2001 | Picture Claire | Laramie |
| 2002 | Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice | Palmberg |
| Now & Forever | Carl Mackie | |
| Flower & Garnet | Ed | |
| 2003 | Falling Angels | Jim Field |
| Paycheck | Jude - Guard | |
| 2004 | The Butterfly Effect | Jason |
| Wilby Wonderful | Duck MacDonald | |
| Blade: Trinity | Asher Talos | |
| 2005 | Lucid | Victor |
| Whole New Thing | Denny | |
| Shooting Gallery | Michael Mortensen | |
| 2006 | Snow Cake | John Neil |
| Unnatural & Accidental | Norman | |
| 2007 | Code Name: The Cleaner | Shaw |
| The Invisible | Detective Brian Larson | |
| Butterfly on a Wheel | Det. McGill | |
| Normal | Walt Braugher | |
| Silk | Schuyler | |
| 2008 | Sleepwalking | Will |
| The X Files: I Want to Believe | 2nd Abductor - Janke Dacyshyn | |
| 2009 | Case 39 | Edward Sullivan |
| The Plan | Leoben Conoy | |
| 2010 | Gunless | Ben Cutter |
| Faith, Fraud, & Minimum Wage | Donald McMullen | |
| Trigger | Billy | |
| 2013 | The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet | Father |
| Hell in a Handbag | Silver | |
| 2014 | October Gale | James Matthews |
| Sitting on the Edge of Marlene | Fast Freddy | |
| Ride | Tim | |
| 2015 | Fifty Shades of Grey | Ray |
| Into the Forest | Robert | |
| Born to Be Blue | Dick Bock | |
| 2016 | Warcraft | Moroes |
| Wait Till Helen Comes | Dave | |
| 2017 | Little Pink House | |
| Goon: Last of the Enforcers | Hyrum Cain | |
| Mobile Homes | Robert | |
| Jigsaw | Detective Brad Halloran | |
| 2018 | Fifty Shades Freed | Ray |
Television Series[]
| Year | Title | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 1994 | The Commish | Konichek |
| Lonesome Dove: The Series | Harry Price | |
| 1994-1995 | The X Files | Cemetery Groundskeeper / Tommy |
| 1995 | The Marshal | Cal |
| The Outer Limits | Carlito | |
| Forever Knight | Bruce Spencer | |
| Side Effects | Armando | |
| 1993-1995 | Highlander | Tyler King / Neal |
| 1995-1996 | My Life as a Dog | Johnny Johansson |
| 1997 | Viper | William T. Lennox |
| La Femme Nikita | Gray Wellman | |
| 1999 | Strange World | Vince |
| Foolish Heart | Ross | |
| 1997-1999 | Due South | Det. Stanley Raymond Kowalski |
| 1998-2000 | Twitch City | Newbie |
| 1999-2001 | Da Vinci's Inquest | Det. Bob Marlowe |
| 2001 | Dice | Egon Schwimmer |
| 2002 | Bliss | Mike |
| Dark Angel | Sheriff Lamar | |
| Mutant X | Zack Lockhart | |
| The Dead Zone | Max Cassidy | |
| The Eleventh Hour | Mark Mitchum | |
| 2003 | Tru Calling | Elliott Winters |
| Battlestar Galactica | Leoben Conoy | |
| 2004 | Touching Evil | Mike Espy |
| Kingdom Hospital | Earl Candleton | |
| H2O | Don Pritchard / Lt. Daniel Holt | |
| 2005 | Supernatural | Roy |
| 2006 | The L Word | Danny Wilson |
| Smallville | Tyler McKnight | |
| 2007 | Men in Trees | Jeff |
| Bionic Woman | Victor Booth | |
| Tin Man | Zero | |
| 2004-2009 | Battlestar Galactica | Leoben Conoy |
| 2009 | Harper's Island | John Wakefield |
| Harper's Globe | John Wakefield | |
| 2010 | 24 | Vladimir Laitanan |
| 2009-2010 | Flashforward | Jeff Slingerland / Dr. Maurice Raynaud |
| 2010-2011 | Shattered | Det. Ben Sullivan / Kyle Loggins |
| 2011 | Alphas | Don Wilson |
| Rookie Blue | Jamie Brennan / Jaimie Brennan | |
| CSI: Miami | Jack Toller | |
| 2011-2012 | The Killing | Rick Felder |
| 2012 | The Firm | Ray McDeere |
| 2008-2013 | Californication | Lew Ashby |
| 2014 | Motive | Stuart Fletcher |
| Transporter: The Series | Schramm | |
| 2016 | Man Seeking Woman | McQuaid |
| Legends of Tomorrow | John Valor | |
| The Man in the High Castle | Gary Connell | |
| 2015-2016 | Longmire | Walker Browning |
| 2018 | Jessica Jones | Dr. Karl Malus |
| 2018-2019 | Impulse | Nikolai |
| 2022 | The Umbrella Academy | Lester Pocket |
| 2024 | Star Trek: Discovery | Rayner |
Television Films[]
| Year | Title | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 1994 | Paris or Somewhere | Christy Mahon |
| 1995 | Falling from the Sky: Flight 174 | Pumper |
| When the Dark Man Calls | Bob Levesh | |
| The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky | Big Hat | |
| The Omen | Driver | |
| 1996 | Little Criminals | Kostash |
| For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down | Jerry Bines | |
| 1997 | Tricks | Adam |
| 2000 | Murder Seen | Detective Keegan |
| Nature Boy | Eden Abez | |
| 2001 | Trapped | Anthony Bellio |
| 2002 | Torso: The Evelyn Dick Story | Inspector Wood |
| 2004 | The Five People You Meet in Heaven | Eddie's Father |
| 2005 | Whiskey Echo | Dr. Rollie Saunders |
| Painkiller Jane | Mitchell | |
| 2006 | The Hunters | Quin Hunter |
| 2008 | Of Murder and Memory | Leonard Bast |
Gallery[]
External Links[]
Callum Keith Rennie on Wikipedia
Callum Keith Rennie at the Internet Movie Database
Callum Keith Rennie on Twitter