Bob Balaban played UFO expert Claude Lacombe’s (François Truffaut) assistant David Laughlin in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and went on to appear in a truly astounding number of different projects. He’s established himself as one of Hollywood’s more prominent character actors, turning up in 127 titles as of 2023.
Balaban was one of the producers and stars of Robert Altman’s 2001 black comedy “Gosford Park,” which earned him and co-producers Altman and Robert Levy an Academy Award nomination for best picture. You can spot him in films like George Clooney’s “The Monuments Men,” Bennett Miller’s “Capote,” and M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Lady in the Water.” He’s also one of Wes Anderson’s regulars, appearing in the filmmaker’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “The French Dispatch,” and “Asteroid City.” A prominent voice actor, he narrates Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom” and voices the King in “Isle of Dogs.” On the TV front, he’s played Russell Dalrymple on “Seinfeld,” among many other roles. He’s also directed multiple times.
Balaban has remained comparatively obscure, and in a 2018 interview with the podcast “I Think You’re Interesting” via Vox), he said that he was perfectly content with the situation. However, he’s been in so many movies and TV shows that he keeps getting semi-recognized in public, and sometimes gets confused with the similar-looking Ron Rifkin (“Alias,” “L.A. Confidential”). Balaban has crafted a standard reply for situations where someone asks him where they know him from. “You really don’t know who I am,” he described as his go-to answer. “I’m an actor. I’m not famous. You’ve seen me in a hundred million things, and you have a vestigial memory of what I look like. So you will not know who I am, and you’re not expected to. So that’s okay.”
