Robert John Burke

A bornandbred New Yorker Robert John Burke made his film debut while in his early 20s with a small part in the drama The Chosen 1981 based on the Chaim Potok story He went on to study acting at SUNY Purchase where he met aspiring filmmaker Hal Hartley who cast him as one of the leads in his debut feature The Unbelievable Truth an offbeat indie tale where he played a man trying to escape his troubled past Working with Hartley again on the charming brothercentric dark comedy Simple Men Burke caught a major break when Hollywood producers decided that his chiseled jawline was the right one to replace Peter Wellers in the scifiaction sequel RoboCop 3 Despite Burkes efforts the movie tanked and he went on to smaller roles in major films including the lauded Western Tombstone 1993 and the prisonbreak movie Fled 1996 Burke landed his second chance in a Hollywood starring role with the Stephen King adaptation Thinner 1996 but the macabre tale which featured him under heavy makeup to depict a callous man who magically loses weight was deemed almost universally unlikableThough Burkes leadingman days were mostly behind him his beastly role in Hartleys No Such Thing 2001 aside he soldiered on and began increasingly working on television with recurring roles on the grim prison drama Oz and the police procedural Law Order Special Victims Unit NBC 1999 Appearing in George Clooneys first two movies as director Confessions of a Dangerous Mind 2002 and Good Night and Good Luck 2005 Burke nonetheless became more familiar to TV audiences particularly when he signed on to play Mickey Gavin the expriest cousin of Denis Learys lead character on the firefighter series Rescue Me a part that dovetailed with Burkes reallife second job as a New York State firemanOften cast as a tough guy the ruggedly handsome and tall actor continued to play imposing figures such as Major General James Chaos Mattis in the Iraq War miniseries Generation Kill HBO 2008 and Bart Bass the controlling billionaire father of Chuck Bass Ed Westwick on the soapy drama Gossip Girl Before long he was juggling his ongoing Law Order SVU part with regular spots on the military drama Army Wives Lifetime 2007 and the tense crime show Person of Interest CBS 2011 while still finding time for supporting turns in films including the Denzel WashingtonMark Wahlberg action movie 2 Guns 2013