Happy Birthday, Doug Jones: The Best Unknown Actor You Know [GIFS]

Even if you don’t know his face, you’ve seen his work. Hellboy I & II, Pan’s Labyrinth, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Batman Returns, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Hocus Pocus–the list goes on and on. Doug Jones is one of the most versatile and unbelievably talented men alive, and he’s celebrating his 54th birthday today.
Jones is particularly beloved by director Guillermo Del Toro, who’s utilized his talents in all but three of his films. Jones also has one of the greatest career anecdotes in the history of Hollywood. Revolution Studios panicked about a “no-name” actor playing Abe Sapien in the first Hellboy movie, and they hired David Hyde Pierce to dub over Jones’ voice. Pierce didn’t just refuse a credit for his work. He actually ensured that he mimicked Jones’ voice as closely as possible, making all their work to replace Jones completely irrelevant. When the franchise switched over to Universal for the sequel, they wisely allowed Jones to do his own voice work.
Still need proof that everyone loves Doug Jones? He recently did an AMA over on Reddit, and got more love from those types than had ever been shown to a proudly-professing Christian. And not only do the hedonistic godless Hollywood types not shun him as a result, he says that they embrace him: “The only issues about my faith in the show-biz has been that people are so very respectful of it–as I try to be of them!!”
Now that’s a true Christian right there. We know that plenty of people have still never heard of Doug, but he’s still a real genre hero to plenty of folks. Not always just geeks, either. The image above is Doug morphing between his own self and the character of Pan in Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. Now enjoy more GIFs celebrating some of the Great Man’s most memorable roles (and, in the case of Legion, the only memorable role in the movie)…

The Silver Surfer from Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Abe Sapien in the Hellboy films

The Angel of Death in Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Billy the Butcher in Hocus Pocus

Gentleman Demon on Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The Ice Cream Man in Legion

The Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth

Mayor Connors in the fan-made Fallout: Nuka Break