Linus Roache’s many undervalued performances share the same DNA

Linus Roache has quietly mastered television, and the Homeland star is getting better as he goes. Discover his tremendous resume in this week’s Deeper Cut.

Linus Roache has been stalking the corridors of power as David Wellington on Showtime‘s drama Homeland, but if that’s all you know him from, you’ve missed out on one of the best actors ever to have arrived on set.

Roache has built up an impressive resume on U.S. television since his portrayal of Robert F. Kennedy in RFK, 17 years ago. But before that (and since) he’s been a tremendous film actor, and audiences have taken notice of him in the U.K. since he made his debut on the soap Coronation Street back in 1972.

His career has gone through several transformations since then, each one of them revealing a new facet of his talent, and he seems to be getting even better with every new role. Yet he still has not quite gotten all of the acclaim he deserves.

Let’s start with what you already know: Roache is the best part of Homeland. His addition to the cast at the end of season 6 reinvigorated the series. David Wellington was clearly meant to be yet another political player in a suit, but the casting of Roache gave him a certain edge. You could see the wheels turning in his head. He felt less like someone in the political machine, and more like the guy who built it.

Even when things got crazy (like his resignation letter slash profession of love to President Keane), Roache’s presence kept Wellington feeling genuine. That’s because he has a natural gravity to him, and the experience of having done this many times before.

Step backward seven years, when he was cast in a much lesser-known drama called Kidnapped. It was the first time Linus Roache had been a series regular on an American show, and it seemed to be the driest role ever—buttoned-up FBI agent Andy Archer. Standing in a room with the likes of Jeremy Sisto (with whom he’d later co-star on Law & Order) and Delroy Lindo, he was the guy you probably didn’t notice.

But Roache never played it that way. Look closely and there was always something going on in his eyes. Maybe it was the way he lingered just a moment too long in a scene. He blended in perfectly unless, until, you knew where to look—slowly building the character until Archer was revealed to be one of the bad guys and beat a colleague to death with a baseball bat.

He created so much more than was on the page with that character. And so, too, did he do that in Homeland, playing another character who appeared to be the very picture of the country…only to be hiding so many cracks beneath the surface.

How is Linus Roache so damn good at that duality, keeping us guessing yet hiding the clues in plain sight? The trail goes back to RFK in 2002. Roache portrayed Robert F. Kennedy through the 1960s, after the assassination of his brother John in 1963 until his own murder in 1968. He had the task of playing one of the country’s best-known political figures, at the most turbulent time in his life.

Not only did the English actor manage to look and sound convincingly like the Senator from New York, he embodied everything that the American people came to love about Kennedy. He showed the private, vulnerable side of a man who lost his brother and cared deeply for his family, telling a human story underneath all the political drama.

But he also showed how that tragedy, as well as his own search for direction, shaped Robert and led him to more political prominence, including his Presidential campaign. He brought to life that idealism, that desire for more and better, that politics were ideally supposed to be about.

And it was no surprise that he was nominated for a Golden Globe for the role — he didn’t just tell the life story of Robert F. Kennedy, he made audiences understand why Kennedy was so special.

Linus Roache’s performance in RFK reportedly put him on the radar when a new prosecutor was needed on Law & Order. When Sam Waterston moved into the District Attorney role, Roache was hired to play Executive Assistant District Attorney Michael Cutter, and promptly destroyed every idea of what a lawyer on a TV show was supposed to be.

The Law & Order franchise isn’t known as risky television. The original series, in particular, had its defined formula and it rarely went home with its characters, which resulted in fewer opportunities for development. It was the very definition of a procedural—and then Roache arrived and went in the exact opposite direction.

Michael Cutter was the most brilliant prosecutor Law & Order ever had, precisely because he was not adhering to any formula. The hook of his character was the idea that you’d never know what he was going to do next. Several episodes either involved him coming up with a different idea to attack a case, or a brilliant scene where he’d do something to crush the defendant on the stand, or both.

It was fascinating to watch, and it came from the mind and the energy of Linus Roache. He gave Cutter a consistent zeal, where it wasn’t just about winning cases; it was like he got an adrenaline rush from putting the bad guys in their place. This was what made him feel alive. He was brilliant, and a little bit crazy, and more than a little bit funny.

And even though the show gave out very few details about his personal life over three seasons, Roache played with those—and oftentimes things the show didn’t say, like a look or a lingering pause—to make audiences feel like they knew Michael Cutter anyway. Again, he brought more than he was ever given, and the end result was something explosive that remains a high point in Law & Order history.

That same relentless conviction, that unending momentum, is present in David Wellington. It also appeared when Roache portrayed King Ecbert in three seasons of History’s Vikings, starting in 2014. TV viewers probably didn’t recognize him with a distinctly different look, but it was hard not to miss the same great qualities, just in a different time period.

Ecbert was a man driven by belief, not only in his higher power but in himself, and that essentially consumed him across those three seasons. He was powerful and he was certainly cunning, yet he could also be his own worst enemy. His drive was like Andy Archer having gone on some kind of bender. It was no surprise that he didn’t survive the fourth season, because he was so intense that he’d never stop unless someone else stopped him.

And yet, if you watch Vikings now after having seen Roache’s previous work, it’s truly fascinating to see the degrees between his characters, and the subtle ways in which they seem to inform one another. Archer was unhinged in his own small way, but Roache didn’t get to carry that through till he portrayed Ecbert eight years later.

Robert F. Kennedy was an idealist fighting to make a difference, and that same heart was a huge part of Michael Cutter. It’s also part of David Wellington, too, albeit corrupted, jaded and twisted. Roache’s characters can all exist on the same emotional spectrum, which is not something most actors can claim. And it’s not because he’s giving the same performance; it’s the exact opposite.

He’s able to play all these different levels of humanity, and show how these men are affected and transformed by what happens in each of their lives. He’s gone from an idealistic hero of American politics to a historical king who, at least on TV, was on the emotional and intellectual edge. He has played a prosecutor whom audiences could completely root for, and now a Chief of Staff who has fallen down to Earth.

One character could easily be another if something had gone different. Wellington could be Cutter after a few wrong turns and those extra five years of cynicism. Roache brings so much to each role he plays, and he brings out all these little details that not only enhance characters, but find their common ground.

He makes them universal, not only to each other but to the audience. No matter who he plays, he takes that character and connects them to the viewer, which makes watching him such a moving and genuine experience.

And this is before getting into his film career, which would fill up a whole other article. This is also the same actor who played the Purifier in The Chronicles of Riddick and Batman’s father Thomas Wayne in Batman Begins. You probably didn’t recognize his name from either of those roles; you may not even have noticed that he’s English. But that’s the brilliance of Linus Roache.

It’s the same actor playing those characters who was just trying to hold the Presidency together on Homeland. The one who died impressively on Vikings. The same one who turned up in a Lisa Stansfield music video. Linus Roache is a true chameleon who can turn up anywhere, and he’s brilliant everywhere.

Homeland‘s eighth and final season starts in June. Find the latest Deeper Cut every Wednesday in the Entertainment category at FanSided.