Elias Koteas

BIRTHDATE: March 11, 1961
BIRTHPLACE: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
MARITAL STATUS: Married to actress Jennifer Rubin (unconfirmed)
WHY HE DESERVES HIS BIG BREAK:
Anybody who does a movie like Crash deserves some kind of compensation. For those unfamiliar with the 1996 David Cronenberg film, Crash is the intriguingly unpleasant erotic drama about car accident fetishists--that's right, people who get turned on by witnessing or even being involved in car crashes. Elias Koteas plays Vaughan, the mysterious guide for newly-inducted fetishist James Spader. Throughout the course of the movie, Vaughan recreates especially erotic accidents, photographs "fresh" accidents, nails everybody in sight (including James Spader!!), and ends up dying in a flaming car wreck. All things being, though, it's still better than Koteas's second most infamous film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Born in Canada, Elias Koteas made his major US film debut in 1987's Gardens of Stone, followed by John Hughes's Some Kind of Wonderful. His most prominent role in the early 90's was as Casey Jones in the film version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Fans insisted that the movie was more faithful to the comic book series than the kids cartoon, but it still came down to human actors interacting with rubber suits and rapping reptiles. While he wisely chose to stay away from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: the Secret of the Ooze, Koteas appeared in dual roles in the second sequel.

Luckily, Canadian director Atom Egoyan saved him from a lifetime of slogging through sewers with Michelangelo, Donatello, and the gang. Egoyan cast Koteas in two films, The Adjuster (1991), where Koteas played an insurance adjuster who gets a little too involved in his clients' personal lives, and the "not as cheesy as it sounds" Exotica (1994), where he plays a bartender who has the misfortune of working in the very same bar that his ex-girlfriend strips at. Since those critically acclaimed performances, Elias Koteas has been working steadily in both US and Canadian films, including notable roles in The Prophecy, Gattaca, and The Thin Red Line. In our humble opinion, his best performance was as demonically possessed serial killer Edgar Reese in 1998's Fallen. Though he was only in the film for less than twenty minutes, Koteas's gleefully malevolent character stayed with you throughout the entire movie. He was most recently seen as a deacon who helps Winona Ryder confront evil in the thriller Lost Souls (2000).

FILMOGRAPHY
Films highlighted in yellow presents Elias at his best

Ararat (2002)--Ali
Collateral Damage (2002)--Peter Brandt
Novocaine (2001)--Harlan
Shot in the Heart (TV Movie--2001)--Gary Gilmore
Lost Souls (2000)--John Townsend
Harrison's Flowers (2000)--Yeager
Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000)--Sully
Divorce: A Contemporary Western (1998)--Matt
The Thin Red Line (1998)--Captain James 'Bugger' Staros
Apt Pupil (1998)--Archie
Living Out Loud (1998)--The Kisser
Fallen (1998)--Edgar Reese
Gattaca (1997)--Antonio
Hit Me (1996)--Sonny
Crash (1996)--Vaughan
Power of Attorney (1995)--Paul Dellacroce
Sugartime (TV Movie--1995)--Butch Blasi
The Prophecy (1995)--Thomas Daggett
Camilla (1995)--Vincent Lopez
Exotica (1994)--Eric
Cyborg 2 (1993)--Colson 'Colt' Ricks
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)--Casey Jones/Whit
Chain of Desire (1992)--Jesus
Contact (TV Movie-1992)--Mohannan
The Habitation of Dragons (TV Movie--1992)--Wally Smith
The Adjuster (1991)--Noah Render
Almost an Angel (1990)--Steve
Look Who's Talking Too (1990)--Stuart
Desperate Hours (1990)--Wally Bosworth
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)--Casey Jones
Friends, Lovers, & Lunatics (1989)--Davey
Malarek (1989)--Victor Malarek
Blood Red (1988)--Silvio
Full Moon in Blue Water (1988)--Jimmy
She's Having a Baby (1988)--Duncan
Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988)--Alex Tremulis
Onassis: The Richest Man in the World (TV Movie--1988)--????
Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)--Duncan
Gardens of Stone (1987)--Pete Deveber
Private Sessions (TV Movie--1985)--????
One Magic Christmas (1985)--Eddie