| TV
Zone Issue #146
"Resident
Evil"
Michael Bailey Smith plays the nasty side of Cole...
Byline ~ Joe Nazzaro
When
Michael Bailey Smith accompanied a friend to an audition
for Nightmare on Elm Street 5, he had no idea that he'd
spend the next several years playing an assortment of creeps
and crazies. "As we were leaving," Smith recalls,
"I was asked to come in and meet the director, Stephen
Hopkins. He asked me if I could laugh like Freddie Krueger,
and I said, 'I'll give it a shot.' and let out this big
hideous laugh, and he said, 'Guess what? Come back next
week and you're hired!' That one-day job turned into a
week, and then it went on from there!"
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The
six foot four, 260-pound former Paratrooper and college
football player soon discovered that there was plenty
of work available for actors of his stature, so to
speak. Over the next several years, he appeared in
TV shows The X-Files, Babylon 5, Buffy The Vampire
Slayer and Voyager. His feature credits include My
Favorite Martian, Final Voyage, Town & Country
and the unreleased Fantastic Four movie, in which
he played Ben Grim. His most recent genre project
is Men in Black 2 where he plays a creepy guy
who gets eaten by Lara Flynn Boyle's character.
Smith's
long-running gig with Charmed began after he played
a Grimlock in the episode All Hallows Eve. The producers
were so pleased with his work that when they decided
to replace the actor playing Belthazor, the role was
offered to Smith. "It was only supposed to be
a couple of episodes, and the next thing you know,
I did 11 episodes last season. You can't beat that!" |
Despite
the uncomfortable hours of make-up that Smith has to undergo
when he plays Belthazor, there are a few fringe benefits
to the job. "Alyssa always greets me with a big hug
and a kiss on the cheek," he explains, "and even
as scary as I look, she says, 'You're still handsome!' but
I keep saying, 'Be quiet, don't tell anybody!'
Smith
has also played a number of other demon characters in Charmed
in recent months, but looking to the future, he hopes to
expand his acting repertoire to include some bigger action-adventure
roles and maybe a hero or two. "But right now, I'm
playing bad guys, and I love it," he claims. "In
real life, I'm this kick-back easy-going guy, so it's always
fun to step out of your skin and play these crazy roles."
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