Creator / Ving Rhames

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What does Ving Rhames look like?

Irving Rameses "Ving" Rhames was born May 12, 1959 in New York City. He discovered a love of acting in High School, and got his start in the Broadway play The Winter Boys, and from there worked in a number of Soap Operas and supporting roles until his big break as crime boss Marcellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction.

He has since worked in the Mission: Impossible film series (to this day, he is the only actor outside of Tom Cruise to have appeared in every film in it), Con Air, Dawn of the Dead (2004), and even Lilo & Stitch (2002), among many other roles. Unfortunately, much of his more recent output has consisted of Direct-to-Video movies. He is also the current spokesman for Arby's in their "We Have the Meats" campaign.

Filmography:

• Casualties of War (1989) — Lt. Reilly
• Jacob's Ladder (1990) — George
• Homicide (1991) — Robert Randolph
• The People Under the Stairs (1991) — Leroy
• Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992) — Mr. Stereo
• Pulp Fiction (1994) — Marcellus Wallace
• ER (1994-96) — Walter Robbins
• Mission: Impossible Film Series — Luther Stickell
  • Mission: Impossible (1996)
  • Mission: Impossible II (2000)
  • Mission: Impossible III (2006)
  • Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)
  • Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)
  • Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)
  • Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (2023)
  • Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025)
• Striptease (1996) — Shad
• Rosewood (1997) — Mann
• Con Air (1997) — Nathan Jones, a.k.a. Diamond Dog
• Don King: Only in America (1997) — Don King (Golden Globe Award for Best Actor — Miniseries or Television Film)
• Body Count (1998) — Pike
• Out of Sight (1998) — Buddy Bragg
• Entrapment (1999) — Aaron Thibadeaux
• Bringing Out the Dead (1999) — Marcus
• Undisputed (2001) — George 'Iceman' Chambers
• Lilo & Stitch franchise — Cobra Bubbles (voice)
  • Lilo & Stitch (2002)
  • Stitch! The Movie (2003)
  • Lilo & Stitch: The Series (2003; cameo as Experiment 300/Spooky disguised as Cobra in "Spooky")
  • Leroy & Stitch (2006; cameo)
• RFK (2002) — Judge Jones
• Dark Blue (2002) — Deputy Chief Arthur Holland
• Dawn of the Dead (2004) — Officer Kenneth
• Day of the Dead (2008) — Captain Rhodes
• The Tournament (2009) — Joshua Harlow
• Surrogates (2009) — The Prophet
• Give 'Em Hell, Malone (2009) — Boulder
• Piranha 3D (2010) — Deputy Fallon
  • Piranha 3DD (2012)
• Death Race 2 (2010) — Weyland
• "Master Harold"... and the Boys (2010) — Sam
• Julia X (2011) — The Man
• Zombie Apocalypse (2011) — Henry
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) — Charlie-27
• Wendell & Wild (2022) — Buffalo Belzer
• The Garfield Movie (2024) — Otto
• The Wild Robot (2024) — Thunderbolt

Tropes relating to Ving Rhames include:

• Awesome, Dear Boy:invoked As soon as he heard that Dawn of the Dead (1978) was being remade, he lobbied to be cast because he was a huge fan of the first film.
• Cast the Runner-Up:invoked For the film Undisputed, Wesley Snipes was up for the role of Iceman, while Ving was offered the lead. Both preferred the opposite role and so they swapped.
• Dyeing for Your Art:invoked He put on 30 lbs to look more intimidating when playing a bouncer in Striptease.
• Friendship on the Set:invoked He and Tom Cruise became close friends while filming Mission Impossible, which is why he's the only other actor to appear in all the films.
• Money, Dear Boy:invoked He's admitted that his role in the Mission: Impossible Film Series is mainly a pay check.
  "I wouldn't say I'm a fan of it, because quite honestly, I'm more interested in films that deal with the human condition. Mission:Impossible is basically entertainment, and for what it is, it's fine. I don't think most actors become actors to do that type of film."
• Playing Against Type:invoked His character in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a soft spoken Nice Guy who, while a marine, is not particularly intimidating.
• Playing with Character Type:invoked
  • He plays his usual typecasting for comedy in Striptease as The Comically Serious bouncer Shad.
  • While initially intimidating as a CIA-agent-turned social worker in Lilo & Stitch (2002), he has a change of heart and lets Lilo stay with Nani.
• Scary Black Man: His movie characters can be absolutely hair-raising.
• Spared by the Cut:invoked Luther was originally set to be killed off in Mission: Impossible (1996). Ving then said to Tom Cruise "why is it the black character always dies in the first ten pages?", to which the latter agreed, and Luther was spared, and appeared in every subsequent film.
• Stage Names: He uses Ving as a nickname for his full name Irving. It was actually Stanley Tucci who gave him that nickname while they were roommates together.
• Throw It In:invoked For a scene in Dawn of the Dead (2004) where Kenneth's wounds are being stitched, they had a nurse double for Sarah Polley, and she misunderstood Zack Snyder's direction and punctured Ving's skin, eventually stitching the prosthetic to his arm. He said nothing until they finished filming, and Snyder thought that the blood was just "a really good effect".
• What Could Have Been:invoked
  • He turned down a role in Renaissance Man to star in Pulp Fiction.
  • He was in consideration for Joe Coffey in The Green Mile before Michael Clarke Duncan was given the part.
  • Cobra Bubbles of Lilo & Stitch (2002) was first envisioned as a Jeff Goldblum type, but they then opted to make him more intimidating.