Cary Elwes

Elwes made his acting debut in 1984 with Marek Kanievska's film Another Country, which was loosely based on the English boarding school exploits of British spies, Burgess, Philby and MacLean. He played James Harcourt, a gay student.[9] He went on to play Guilford Dudley in the British historical drama film Lady Jane, opposite Helena Bonham Carter. He was then cast as a stable-boy-turned-swashbuckler Westley in Rob Reiner's fantasy-comedy The Princess Bride, which was based on the novel of the same name by William Goldman. It was a modest box office success,[21] but received critical acclaim, earning a score of 97% on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes.[22] Since being released on home video and television, the film has become a cult classic.[21]

Initially the studio didn't know how to market it. Was it an adventure? A fantasy? A comedy? A romance? A kid's movie? In the end they sold it as a kid's movie and it largely had to rely on word of mouth ... people tell me they still have their VHS copy that has been passed down from one generation to the next.

— Interview from the film's DVD release in 2001[23]

Elwes continued to work steadily, varying between dramatic roles, such as in the Oscar-winning Glory (1989), and comedic roles, as in Hot Shots! (1991). In 1993, he starred as Robin Hood in Mel Brooks's comedy, Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Elwes then appeared in supporting roles in such films as Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, The Crush, The Jungle Book (1994), Twister, Liar Liar, and Kiss the Girls. In 1999, he portrayed famed theatre and film producer John Houseman for Tim Robbins in his ensemble film based on Orson Welles's musical, Cradle Will Rock. Following that, he travelled to Luxembourg to work with John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe in Shadow of the Vampire. In 2001, he co-starred in Peter Bogdanovich's ensemble film The Cat's Meow portraying movie mogul Thomas Ince, who died mysteriously while vacationing with William Randolph Hearst on his yacht.

In 2004, Elwes starred in the horror–thriller Saw which, at a budget of a little over $1 million, grossed over $100 million worldwide.[24] The same year he appeared in Ella Enchanted, this time as the villain, not the hero. He made an uncredited appearance as Sam Green, the man who introduced Andy Warhol to Edie Sedgwick, in the 2006 film Factory Girl. In 2007, he appeared in Garry Marshall's Georgia Rule opposite Jane Fonda.

In 2010, he returned to the Saw franchise in Saw 3D (2010), the seventh film in the series, as Dr. Lawrence Gordon.[25] In 2011, he was selected by Ivan Reitman to star alongside Natalie Portman in No Strings Attached. That same year, Elwes and Garry Marshall teamed up again in the ensemble romantic comedy New Year's Eve opposite Robert de Niro and Halle Berry.

In 2012, Elwes starred in the independent drama The Citizen.[26] and the following year Elwes joined Selena Gomez for the comedy ensemble, Behaving Badly directed by Tim Garrick. In 2014, he starred in John Herzfeld's ensemble comedy Reach Me. In 2015, he completed four movies: the ensemble drama Sugar Mountain directed by Richard Gray; and the dramas H8RZ, directed by Derrick Borte, We Don't Belong Here, opposite Anton Yelchin and Catherine Keener directed by Peer Pedersen, and Being Charlie which reunited Elwes with director Rob Reiner after 28 years and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

In January 2016, Elwes portrayed Andy Warhol opposite Kevin Spacey in The Billionaire Boys Club directed by James Cox.[27]

Elwes made his first television appearance in 1996 as David Lookner on Seinfeld. Two years later he played astronaut Michael Collins in the Golden Globe Award-winning HBO miniseries From the Earth To the Moon. The following year Elwes was nominated for a Golden Satellite Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television for his portrayal of Colonel James Burton in The Pentagon Wars directed by Richard Benjamin. In 1999, he guest starred as Dr. John York in an episode of the television series The Outer Limits. Shortly afterward he received another Golden Satellite Award nomination for his work on the ensemble NBC Television movie Uprising opposite Jon Voight directed by Jon Avnet. Elwes had a recurring role in the final season (from 2001 to 2002) of Chris Carter's hit series The X-Files as FBI Assistant Director Brad Follmer.

In 2004, he portrayed serial killer Ted Bundy in the A&E Network film The Riverman, which became one of the highest rated original movies in the network's history and garnered a prestigious BANFF Rockie Award nomination. The following year, Elwes played the young Karol Wojtyła in the CBS television film Pope John Paul II, his second time working with Jon Voight. The TV film was highly successful not only in North America but also in Europe, where it broke box office records in the late Pope's native Poland and became the first film ever to break $1 million (GBP 739,075.00 current) in three days.[28]

In 2007, he made a guest appearance on the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Dependent" as a Mafia lawyer. In 2009, he played the role of Pierre Despereaux, an international art thief, in the fourth-season premiere of Psych.[29] In 2010, he returned to Psych, reprising his role in the second half of the fifth season, again in the show's sixth season, and again in the show's eighth season premiere.[30] In 2014 Elwes played Hugh Ashmeade, Director of the CIA, in the second season of the BYUtv series Granite Flats.

In May 2015, Elwes was cast as a series regular in Crackle's first streaming network series drama, The Art of More, which explores the cutthroat world of premium auction houses. He played Arthur Davenport, a shrewd and eccentric world-class collector of illegal art and antiquities. The series debuted on 19 November and was picked up for a second season.[31]

In April 2018 Elwes was cast as Larry Kline, Mayor of Hawkins, for the third season of the Netflix series Stranger Things, which premiered in July 2019.[32] In May 2019, it was announced that he would be joining the third season of the Amazon series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel as Gavin Hawk.[33]

Elwes's voice-over work includes the narrator in James Patterson's audiobook The Jester,[34] as well as characters in film and television animations such as Quest for Camelot, Pinky and The Brain, Batman Beyond, and the English versions of the Studio Ghibli films, Porco Rosso, Whisper of the Heart and The Cat Returns. For the 2004 video game The Bard's Tale, he served as screenwriter, improviser, and voice actor of the main character The Bard. In 2009, Elwes reunited with Jason Alexander for the Indian film, Delhi Safari.[35] The following year Elwes portrayed the part of Gremlin Gus in Disney's video game, Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two. In 2014, he appeared in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey as the voice of scientists Edmond Halley and Robert Hooke.

In 2009 Elwes joined the cast of Robert Zemeckis's motion capture adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol portraying five roles. That same year he was chosen by Steven Spielberg to appear in his motion capture adaptation of Belgian artist Hergé's popular comic strip The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.[36]

In 2003 Elwes portrayed Kerry Max Cook in the off-Broadway play The Exonerated in New York, directed by Bob Balaban (18–23 March 2003).[37]

In October 2014 Touchstone (Simon & Schuster) published Elwes's memoir of the making of The Princess Bride, entitled As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, which Elwes co-wrote with Joe Layden. The book featured never-before-told stories, exclusive behind-the-scenes photographs, and interviews with co-stars Robin Wright, Wallace Shawn, Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, Fred Savage and Mandy Patinkin, as well as author and screenwriter William Goldman, producer Norman Lear, and director Rob Reiner. The book debuted on The New York Times Best Seller list.[38][39]

In 2014, Elwes co-wrote the screenplay for a film entitled Elvis & Nixon, about the pair's famous meeting at the White House in 1970.[3] The film, which starred Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey, was bought by Amazon as their first theatrical feature and was released on 22 April 2016.[40]