As we continue to get into AMC’s Preacher this summer, some viewers remain confused early on about what’s going on, but there should not be any confusion about what an amazing cast producers Sam Catlin, Seth Rogen, and Evan Goldberg have assembled. Like The Walking Dead, Preacher clearly has an affinity for actors from the United Kingdom, which means that many of them have been famous over in Britain for several years. However, we have seen almost all of these actors before, sometimes in memorable roles, and sometimes before we knew they’d be stars.
Here’s a quick look at nine times we’ve seen Preacher cast members but didn’t know it.
Dominic Cooper
Before he was Jesse Custer, Cooper was probably best known as Howard Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, Cooper also played Henry Sturges in the goofy guilty pleasure Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. He’s also had a nice run with parts, both big and small, in great smaller films, like An Education, The History Boys, and a really fantastic movie called Starter for 10, which also starred a young James McAvoy:
Where you may not remember him, however, was in Mamma Mia, where he played the cheesy boyfriend of Amanda Seyfried’s character, and he sang! Terribly! So, so terribly.
Where you have probably not seen him, however, was in Band of Brothers. He was in it (along with every other popular male actor of this generation), but photographic evidence has yet to be unearthed.
Joseph Gilgun
Most Americans probably aren’t that familiar with Joseph Gilgun, unless they were big fans of the UK’s Misfits, where he was a stand-out. (That cast is also taking over the world.) Gilgun has been in a number of other British series over the years, including the long-running UK soap, Coronation Street, where he looked like this:
He looked a little more hobo-chic in a British series called Emmerdale, another long-running British soap opera.
Previous to Preacher, Americans were most likely to have seen him in a quality B-movie starring Guy Pearce called Lockout that used to be a mainstay on Netflix. In the movie, Gilgun looked like even more like the comics version of Cassidy than the TV series version of Cassidy:
Ruth Negga
Fans of the UK’s Misfits are not only familiar with Joseph Gilgun, but his Misfits co-star Ruth Negga, who also has a number of British series under her belt. Like Cooper, she’s also part of the Marvel Universe, although in this case, on the television side with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
The only other place Americans may have seen her was as a doctor in the Brad Pitt film World War Z.
Negga can also be seen this week in Warcraft (although reviews suggest that maybe she should not be seen in that), and Jeff Nichols’ upcoming drama Loving.
Lucy Griffiths
Yet another British actor, Lucy Griffiths doesn’t have an extensive American CV, but even fans of HBO’s True Blood may not recognize her as the same actress who played Nora Gainesborough for two years.
W. Earl Brown
One of the most prolific character actors around, W. Earl Brown can be seen in everything from True Detective to Deadwood. However, the most unrecognizable of all of W. Earl Brown’s roles remains his early role as Warren in There’s Something About Mary.
Tom Brooke & Anatol Yusef
It was a small role, but Tom Brooke — who plays the mysterious government agent/angel in Preacher — played Lothar Frey, the son of Walder Frey, in season three of Game of Thrones (he was recast in season six).
The other angel, DeBlanc, is played by Anatol Yusef, who looked completely different in his role as Meyer Lansky in the HBO series, Boardwalk Empire.
Jackie Earle Haley
Haley was a child actor who took a 13-year break from acting in between 1993 and 2006, when he returned in a stand-out role in Little Children, which won him an Oscar nomination. That role led to a part as Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street reboot and Rorschach in Watchmen. As a child, however, Haley is best known for playing Kelly Leak in the original Bad News Bears.
Graham McTavish
Fans of the Starz series Outlander will instantly recognize McTavish — who plays the Saint of Killers — as Dougal MacKenzie, or even as Dwalin in The Hobbit trilogy. Viewers are less likely, however, to remember him from his role as Lewis in 2008’s Rambo.
