Born in Bellaire, Ohio, in May, 1957, he was among the last graduating class of the Windsor Mountain School in Lennox, Massachusetts. Attended Marlboro College in Vermont. Performed in summer stock and regional theatres in Vermont, Michigan and West Virginia before settling in Chicago and joining The Remains ensemble. Levine worked on stage at ...
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Movies
The Silence of the Lambs, The Hills Have Eyes, Shutter Island, The Fast and the Furious, The Banshee Chapter, American Gangster, Wild Wild West, Flubber, Nowhere to Run, Big Game, Heat, Bleed for This, The Truth About Charlie, The Mangler, The Manchurian Candidate, A Single Shot, The Assassination o...
TV Shows
The Bridge, Monk, Crime Story, Wonderland
Star Sign
Gemini
#
Trademark
1
Intense, light blue eyes with expressive eyebrows
2
Often plays some type of authority figure (e.g., police officer, detective, military officer).
3
His powerfully deep, bass voice, which often serves as an ominous warning to the protagonists.
#
Quote
1
I don't live in Los Angeles; I might have to in order to be near it. I love the Midwest. LA is like a porno without the sex. It has about that much allure for me. Is this film going to make me or break me? The typecasting thing is very frustrating. I do get cast as bad guys, and I'm not. I love my children, I'm a good father, I've got a pretty strong sense of right and wrong. That's probably the hardest thing in doing the roles that I do, that's really rough.
2
When I read [The Bridge] and saw the source material, it was just smart. I think that's what drew me to this. I guess that's how I end up in this milieu. Plus I'm on the other side of it, and it took me a number of years to get on the other side. I'm immensely grateful that I am. ... It's really pretty cool that people see me from other things now and they aren't saying, 'Hey, say that line you said in the thing.' That baggage isn't as heavy anymore. -on playing a good guy in The Bridge (2013)
3
Generally you have a month of rehearsals and a couple months of productions. You know that, so you have a nice framework. That's one of the beauties of it. Your balls are on the line. There's no slacking off. It comes down to the wire, and you're up there. You're going to do the whole thing in a number of hours, so prepare for it, relax and stretch, and then you do it. It's a very physical thing as well. You've got to be bigger on the stage. You have to be heard for one thing, which is something I've always had trouble with. It's one of the reasons I like film, because I can mumble. I've always felt my person is more effective on film than onstage. I'm just not a real extroverted person. Not that film is easier, it's just an easier place for me to be. -on theater acting vs acting on film
4
It was hard. I'll never do a character like this again. I would have loved to just have done the part from the script, and not deal with the book, it would be so much easier to work that way, and there are so many images in the book that aren't in the film. On the one hand they can be useful to you, on the other hand you can end up working too hard, which is something I think I did. I drove myself nuts with this character. I lived with this son of a bitch. Something that is very consistent with serial killers is they look at a lot of pornography, and I did that too. That will make you fucking crazy. -on his character in The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
5
I scared them to death in the audition. I had no idea what I was going to do. I read the script; I read the book; I tried stuff. I met Jonathan [Jonathan Demme] in Los Angeles, and we just talked, and I got a sense where he was at about it. He called me back; I went to New York to talk some more, and I just read. I sort of copped something on the way, which is something you have to do, whether it's right or wrong. Actually I think my audition was better than my performance, by far. -on how he got the part of Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
#
Fact
1
Ted Levine and his Silence of the Lambs costar, Scott Glenn have both portrayed America's first man in space, Alan B. Shepard; Levine in the Tom Hanks produced HBO mini series, "From the Earth to the Moon," and Glenn in the 1984 Philip Kaufman film, "The Right Stuff.".
2
His father was of Russian Jewish descent. His mother had English ancestry.
3
Has been friends with Sam Shepard and William Petersen since their early theater collaborations in the late 1970s.
4
He was nominated for a 1996 Joseph Jefferson Award for Actor in a Supporting Role in a Play for "Buried Child" at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, Illinois.
After his terrifying turn as "Buffalo Bill" in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), he's had some trouble getting parts other than sadistic psychopaths. He generally tries to choose parts more along the lines of ordinary family men and unfriendly co-workers to get away from the creepy shadow of "Buffalo Bill".
12
Like Sex and the City (1998) star Chris Noth ("Mr. Big"), he attended Marlboro College in Vermont for a time in the 1970s.
$4 Million
