Terrance Quinn, known professionally as Terry O'Quinn, is an American actor. He played John Locke on the TV seriesLost, the title role in The Stepfather and Stepfather II, and Peter Watts in Millennium, which ran for three seasons. He has also hosted Mysteries of the Missing on The Science Channel.
Early life
O'Quinn was born at War Memorial Hospital in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, one of 11 siblings, and grew up in nearby Newberry, Michigan. He is of Irish descent, and was raised Catholic. He attended Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, and the University of Iowa in Iowa City. He changed his surname from Quinn to O'Quinn as another registered actor already had the name Terrance Quinn. In the 1970s he went to Baltimore to act in the Center Stage production of Tartuffe. He remained at Center Stage for some years and often appeared with the late Tana Hicken, most notably as Benedick to her Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. His first movie role was in Heaven's Gate.
Career
O'Quinn began acting in the 1970s during his time at Central Michigan University. He not only was an actor but also playwright/director. He wrote and directed the musical Orchestrina. This musical featured five main characters: The Man, The Boy, The Woman, The Girl, and The Drunk, plus a female and a male chorus. He was roommates at CMU with actor Brad Slaight. Starting in 1980, O'Quinn has appeared in various feature films such as Silver Bullet, Tombstone, Heaven's Gate, Young Guns, alongside Rutger Hauer in Blind Fury, and as Howard Hughes in The Rocketeer. O'Quinn also appeared in the Canadianhorror movie, Pin alongside British-born Canadian actor, David Hewlett. His early television roles include guest appearances on Miami Vice, Moonlighting, ', The Twilight Zone, ', a recurring role on Earth 2, another recurring role as Captain Thomas Boone on JAG, as well as Colonel Will Ryan in episode 15 of season 1 on the JAG spin-off series NCIS. Around 1995, O'Quinn made guest appearances in The X-Files and Harsh Realm, produced by Chris Carter, who also cast him in the film The X-Files: Fight The Future and then once again in the final season. In 1996 O'Quinn started acting in the television series Millennium as Peter Watts, also produced by Chris Carter. O'Quinn held this role for all three seasons of the series. O'Quinn holds the distinction of having played four different characters within the extended X-Files/Millennium continuum.
''The Stepfather'' films
O'Quinn made his breakthrough by starring as the deranged serial-killing title character in The Stepfather. He was praised by critics, including Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, who commented: "'The Stepfather' has one wonderful element: Terry O'Quinn's performance". Ebert wrote: "He is a journeyman actor from TV and many movies, usually in supporting roles, and you may or may not recognize him. What's clear at once is that he is a strong actor, and given this leading role he brings all kinds of creepy dimensions to it. He has the thankless assignment of showing us a completely hateful, repellent character – and he approaches the task as an exercise in cloying middle-class good manners." O'Quinn was nominated for both a Saturn Award and an Independent Spirit Award for his performance. In the film, O'Quinn plays a deranged serial killer going by the name "Jerry Blake", who is obsessed with having an ideal family. When a widowed mother and daughter do not comport with his expectations, he spirals into a spell of madness and attempts to brutally murder them. A sequel was released two years after the first film, in which his character escapes from the asylum in which he is placed, and steals the identity of a man named Gene Clifford after reading his obituary in a local newspaper. It grossed almost a million dollars less at the box office. Not impressed with the second movie, O'Quinn declined to appear in the third installment, in which the stepfather character was portrayed by Robert Wightman. O'Quinn was approached by director of the 2009 reboot of The Stepfather, Nelson McCormick, to make a cameo appearance in the film, but according to the producers O'Quinn turned down the offer.
''Lost''
After a string of recurring appearances on Alias, as the FBI DirectorKendall, O'Quinn became a favorite of television producer J.J. Abrams. Following a seven-episode guest run onThe West Wing in 2003–2004, O'Quinn received a call from Abrams indicating that the producer wanted to cast him in his new television drama Lost without any audition. In 2005 O'Quinn received an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama for his work as John Locke on the series Lost. O'Quinn admitted on the TV Guide Channel that he did not have much faith in Lost at first, calling it "The Mysterious Gilligan's Island of Dr. Moreau". The show, however, became one of the most popular on television, and on September 16, 2007 he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series for his role, and was nominated again for an Emmy for the role in 2010, which he did not win. In a Tv.com interview O'Quinn commented that the reason he felt comfortable playing this character is because he's a bit like him.
2010–present
O'Quinn has made a number of television appearances since Lost. From 2012–2013, O'Quinn starred in the short-lived series 666 Park Avenue as Gavin Doran. In 2012, he appeared in the second season of Falling Skies. Additionally, O’Quinn starred for two seasons in Amazon Studios' Patriot. In 2016, it was announced that O'Quinn would be joining the second season of Secret and Lies. In 2019, O'Quinn starred in the only season of Perpetual Grace, LTD on Epix.
