And The Name Is J.K. Simmons!

How could you not remember his "I'm really doing a screwball comedy, not a superhero movie" performance as J. Jonah Jameson-newspaper editor/publisher of The Daily Bugle in the "Spiderman" movies...
... and here's what he looks like without the wig and 'stache...
...but this year critics are lovin' his performance in the new indie comedy "Juno", which they are also lovin'.*



Like a lot of the character actors I love, there's not a lot on the intranets about Simmons. So let's see what the world's favorite fabricator Wikipedia has to say...



Biography

Early life
Simmons was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Patricia (née Kimble), an administrator, and Donald William Simmons, a college professor.[1][2] He has a brother, David (a singer and songwriter), and a sister, Elizabeth. He attended the University of Montana[3] and was a member of the Seattle Repertory Theatre.[3]


Career
Prior to his film & television career, Simmons was a Broadway actor and singer. He was in the revival of Guys and Dolls as Benny Southstreet. He also played the role of Jigger in a revival of Carousel at the Houston Grand Opera.


Simmons is known for his TV roles as Dr. Emil Skoda, a police psychiatrist who has appeared on three of the four incarnations of Law & Order, and as the sadistic Vernon Schillinger on the prison drama Oz. He also played the obsessively egotistical newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson in all three Spider-Man movies. Simmons provided his voice for two newspaper editors in two episodes of the eighteenth season of The Simpsons. The characters are never named, but are obviously meant to emulate the character of Jameson (one even demands "pictures of Spider-Man.") He also stars as Ralph Earnhardt, the father of famous race-car driver Dale Earnhardt, in 3: The Dale Earnhardt Story. Currently he plays as the Assistant Chief of the LAPD, Will Pope in The Closer.


Less well known is that Simmons provided the voice of the yellow M&M in the product's commercials as well as voiceover work for Norelco razors. He also provided the voice of General Wade Eiling in Justice League Unlimited. He also did an audio book for Tom Clancy's Net Force Point of Impact. Like many of his Law & Order co-stars, he also appeared in an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street, though he portrayed a criminal suspect rather than his Dr. Skoda character.





The thing I've enjoyed about this guy is that he has obviously come from the theater. You don't see a lot of actors who are not theater-trained using their voices so well in film and TV. Simmons really knows how to put over a line in comedy, as seen in the "Spiderman" trilogy and the much-maligned Coen Bros. remake of "The Ladykillers". But then he softens his rich baritone for his appearances on Law & Order and becomes the nicest psychiatric expert for the prosecution you'd ever want to meet.

And the guy is lovin'** his work. You can tell by how he attacks his lines in, yes, the "Spiderman" trilogy. He is on another playing level with his take on this exchange stole- I mean borrowed from IMDB...

Miss Brant: Sir, your wife's on the line, she said she lost her checkbook.
J. Jonah Jameson: Thanks for the good news!

And, of course, you can see him on TNT's "The Closer", where he plays Kyra Sedgewick's former lover.

Because bald guys in their fifties have lives, too, man. Don't judge.

*that will be the last time you see the word "lovin' "in this piece. Except right there. Now... I finally got it out of my system. Phew, I'm glad that's over with.
**I lied. Okay? Back off.