You might not know Richard Jenkins by name, but chances are you’ve seen him in one of the many supporting roles he’s played since the 1980s. His most recognizable roles include Professor Walter Vale in The Visitor — which earned him a 2009 Oscar nomination — Giles in The Shape of Water, and his hilarious Step Brothers performance as a stupified father of imbeciles, Dr. Robert Doback.
Versatility and consistency are Jenkin’s trademarks. For example, he was a newspaper editor in The Witches of Eastwick, a psychiatrist in There’s Something About Mary, a technician at the control panels in The Cabin in the Woods and the deceased patriarch Nathaniel Fisher on HBO’s Six Feet Under.
Those who work with Jenkins often describe him as well-loved. In a MarketWatch interview, the 76-year-old actor recounts his acting roots and how he honed his skills slowly but surely over 14 years in repertory theater work.
“I was awful for much of it, and started to realize I was awful and wanted not to be awful,” he said.
Determined, Jenkins took on a more purposeful attitude towards acting. He now appreciates his incubation time saying, “I had a chance to really fail as a young actor. Just doing it over and over again and saying, ‘I’m not happy with this. How do I get better?’”
Jenkins always dreamed of being an actor, specifically in movies. When he starts, he was taking whatever small, low-paying roles he could get. “That’s the way it works,” Jenkins said. “You have to do things sometimes that you don’t totally believe in, but you approach everything as if it has a chance to be really wonderful. I remember doing stuff way in the beginning of my career, some TV stuff that was not fabulous, but I was thrilled to be able to act. It was great.”
Jenkins praises his wife, choreographer Sharon R. Friedrick, who helped them pull through the hard financial times. When they had a baby, the couple wondered how they’d be able to meet their child’s needs. “It was scary. We had a baby and my wife and I thought, ‘How are we going to do this?…’ But my wife was a teacher, thank God, because that saved us.”
Fortunately, at about the age of 35, Jenkins’ film career started to pick up with roles in 80’s films like Silverado and Hannah and Her Sisters.
With his long filmography, Jenkins knows what it takes to work consistently in this industry. He looks at each of his fellow castmates with much respect.
“When you’re working with somebody who has maybe one scene – I’ve never been in a movie where a day player was not fantastic,” he said. “There are so many people that want that part and this person got it. And this person is good. It’s amazing and true, especially in Hollywood. It’s precious, and there are a lot of actors out there and a lot of them read for that part. So when the guy or woman who got the part comes in, they’re always fantastic.”
Even now, Jenkins admits with each new role he finds himself feeling terrified with thoughts like, “They’re going to find out I’m a fraud.” However, he has a trick to shift his state of mind: he thinks of himself as an artist rather than a craftsman. “You look at things differently,” he says.
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