I thought I needed one last blog before the blackout tomorrow and thought of a pretty hardcore actor that I really like that would be suitable for the day.

Michael Chiklis

Michael Charles Chiklis was born on August 30, 1963 in Lowell, Massachusetts. He started acting at thirteen when he became a member of the Actor's Equity Association and appeared in several regional theater productions. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts through the Boston University College of Fine Arts.

Chiklis states he lost hair in his early 20s due to a role he had as a bald man in the play You Can't Take It With You. He played a 65 year old man and had to shave his head before every performance and used greasepaint instead of powder. This supposedly killed his hair follicles and was very traumatic for him as an actor.

His first major role came as the lead in the family friendly police drama The Commish which ran on ABC from 1991 to 1995. His character, Anthony J. Scali, was laid back, friendly and an easy going cop (very unlike his current character).

After spending six months on a very extensive workout regimen and shaving his head he auditioned for The Shield looking nothing like the chubby cop from he previous show. He quickly won over the lead role as the hardcore detective Vic Mackey. This role, in my opinion, has been the greatest so far in his career. He has won numerous awards for this role including 2002 Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series and a 2002 Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series-Drama.

He has since had several roles in major motion pictures such as the English dubbed version of Spirited Away {2001} and both of the Fantastic Four movies {2005 & 2007} as the Thing. Since they decided away from going fully CGI on the Thing I can't think of a better person to star as Ben Grimm.

If you would like to learn more about this actor please check out his profile pages on both http://www.tv.com/ and http://www.imdb.com/.