The bestMark Margolismovies and TV shows include a strong mix of truly classic films and groundbreaking television shows that legitimize his place in Hollywood history. Margolis was trained by the best, learning under Stella Adler at the Actors Studio and then trained by Lee Strasberg, the teacher who mastered method acting. This led to Margolis getting his start in stage plays before finally moving on to movies in 1976. He then caught the eye of Brian De Palma, and the rest is history.
Margolis enjoyed anearly breakout role in the De Palma classic masterpieceScarface.That earned him enough attention to pick up supporting roles in several movies. His career took an interesting direction in 1998 when Darren Aronofsky cast him in his debut film,Pi. That led toAronofsky casting Margolis in almost every movie he madeafter that untilNoahin 2014. Margolis remains most known to younger fans for his roles inBreaking BadandBetter Call Saul, making TV his biggest source of roles at the end of his life.
American Horror Story
Cast
American Horror Story is a Horror Anthology series created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. The franchise has seen stars like Connie Britton, Jessica Lange, Denis O’Hare, Zachary Quinto, Evan Peters, and Dylan McDermott. Each season follows a new premise and spans an array of horror genres like witches, ghosts, serial killers, and more.
Mark Margolis appeared in the second season ofAmerican Horror Story. InAsylum, Margolis stars as Sam Goodman, a Nazi hunter. His first appearance is in the episode “I Am Anne Frank, Part 2.” In this episode, Sam meets with Sister Jude (Jessica Lange) and talks about the Nazi in hiding at the asylum, Dr. Arthur Arden (James Cromwell). Margolis said he loved the experience and had never seen a cast as impressive as this one (viaMedia Mikes):
“It’s got wonderful actors on it, the principles. The regulars on the show are quite incredible. I mean Jessica Lange is amazing. Cromwell is amazing. There’s a whole group of them that are quite terrific; the regulars. I’ve never seen a show like that.”
Margolis appears in four of the season’s 13 episodesand plays a big part in helping Sister Jude find a way to stop the evil Arden. However, thanks to the possessed Sister Mary Eunice (Lily Rabe), he doesn’t make it out in one piece. The series received a lot of praise, with 17 Primetime Emmy nominations, including a win for James Cromwell for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited/Anthology Series or Movie.
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation follows Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his crew aboard the USS Enterprise NCC-1701D as they embark on interstellar explorations, seeking out new worlds and civilizations.
Mark Margolis only appeared in one episode ofStar Trek: The Next Generation, but it was a memorable performance in what might be the best series of the franchise. He appeared in the episode “A Matter of Perspective” asa Tanugan scientist working on Krieger waves, a new promised energy source for the Federation. Commander Riker and Chief Engineer La Forge drop in to check on him. However, when Riker returns, the station explodes, and Riker is the number one suspect.
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It was a small role, but he played an important part in the episode. His actions led to the explosion that destroyed the station and killed him. This was a highly rated episode of the series, compared in its structure toRashomon, with the actions leading to the explosion told from different points of view. For a one-shot appearance, Margolis left a big impression in his performance and deservedly so on a very goodStar Trekfranchise series.
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
Jim Carrey stars in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective as the titular character, who investigates the disappearance of the Miami Dolphins' mascot. Courteney Cox, Sean Young, and Tone Loc star in this 1994 comedy, which cemented Carrey as a movie star alongside The Mask and Dumb and Dumber.
Mark Margolis had several supporting roles in movies in the 1980s and 1990s, and he became a recognizable face in many releases. One of his more entertaining appearances was a small role in the Jim Carrey breakout movieAce Ventura: Pet Detective. In the movie, Carrey plays an animal-loving detective who specializes in cases involving animals. As such, he also owns a huge plethora of pets, andMargolis plays his landlord, Mr. Shickadance.
One of the most notable scenes in the film involves Mr. Shickadance coming to Ventura’s apartment, hoping to catch him with animals, which is against the building rules so that he can evict him.
As expected for a broad comedy of this sort, his landlord hates animals. One of the most notable scenes in the film involves Mr. Shickadance coming to Ventura’s apartment, hoping to catch him with animals, which is against the building rules so that he can evict him. He fails, and the frustration for Shickadance is obvious, which is only emphasized when he leaves, and dozens of animals of all sizes come out of hiding after the visit.
Your Honor
Your Honor is a legal drama series starring Bryan Cranston as a respected judge whose son becomes involved in a hit-and-run accident. The incident sets off a dangerous chain of events that forces the judge to confront his own principles and navigate the moral complexities of the law. The series explores themes of justice, loyalty, and ethics, offering a compelling narrative of a father’s desperate attempts to protect his son.
One of the best roles of Mark Margolis’s entire career was inBreaking Badas Hector Salamanca. AfterBreaking Badended, Margolis re-teamed with Bryan Cranston in another series. InYour Honor, Cranston stars as a respected New Orleans judge who destroys his reputation when he protects his son, who accidentally killed the son of a mob kingpin in a hit-and-run. In the second season, Cranston’s former judge gets out of prison to go after the mob after his son’s death.
This was Margolis’s final role before his death.
Mark Margolisappears in the second season ofYour Honor, playing Carmine Conti, the father of Gina Baxter (Hope Davis) and grandfather of the boy who died in the original car accident that started the series. He first appears in the fourth episode, “Part Fourteen.” His manipulations of his daughter’s life and conflict with her husband, Jimmy, make him a huge part of the puzzle in the final season and help lead to a satisfying conclusion to the story. This was Margolis’s final role before his death.
Mark Margolis Plays Jimmy
The Equalizer
The Equalizer is a crime-focused action-thriller franchise initially created by Michael Sloan and Richard Lindheim. The franchise began with the 1985 series that followed Robert McCall, a retired intelligence agent who uses his deadly and varied skillset to help those that society cannot save. The film franchise has stood out as the most iconic, with Denzel Washington in the role of the new Robert McCall, with a reboot television series starring Queen Latifah as Robyn McCall.
The Equalizerfranchise has several iterations. The current TV show has Queen Latifah in the lead role, and the movie version has Denzel Washington playing the lead. However, they are both based on the original TV show from the 1980s, which starred Edward Woodward as Robert McCall, the retired intelligence agent who helped people in need. This original series lasted for four seasons and 88 episodes and aired on CBS from 1985 through 1989.
Mark Margolis had an important supporting role in the series as Jimmy.Appearing in 16 episodes of the series, Jimmy was another veteran who served in The Company with McCall when he was in service. Jimmy was someone who showed up when McCall needed a surveillance expert and the need arose for bugs or wiretaps. He was always an entertaining character, as he always had funny stories about his ex-wife, bringing some quirky fun to the series.
Pi (1998)
Mark Margolis has appeared in every Darren Aronofsky moviefrom his debut inPIuntilNoah. While it isn’t his highest-acclaimed movie, Margolis’s role inPiis likely the most important. It showed Margolis that Aronofsky was a director that he wanted to work with and proved to Aronofsky that Margolis was someone who was perfect for his created characters.Piis a psychological thriller released as an arthouse film, shot in black and white and focused on high-level mathematics.
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The 1998 psychological thriller, Pi, has a cerebral finale that blends its scientific and surreal themes together.
The story follows a mathematician named Max, who is obsessed with finding complete order in the world through irrational humanity and rational mathematics. One of the only people Max interacts with is his mathematics mentor, Sol, who is now disabled following a stroke. Margolis plays Sol in the movie. While complex, the film received an 88% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, compared favorably to David Lynch. It made Aronofsky an in-demand director and provided Margolis with regular roles for two decades.
Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad, created by Vince Gilligan, follows a chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin named Walter White (Bryan Cranston) as he attempts to provide for his family following a fatal diagnosis. With nothing left to fear, White ascends to power in the world of drugs and crime, transforming the simple family man into someone known only as Heisenberg.
One of the most famous roles that Mark Margolis ever played came in the TV seriesBreaking Bad. However, this isn’t the best of his roles becausehe only appeared in eight episodes of the series as Hector Salamanca,and he did much more with the character later in the prequel seriesBetter Call Saul. However,Breaking Badremains one of this century’s best critically acclaimed shows, and Margolis’s character is one of the best characters to come out of the series.
However, as a mostly non-verbal communicative person, he is a strong-willed and memorable supporting character
Hector Salamanca is the older don of the Salamanca drug organization and an associate of cartel boss Don Eladio. InBreaking Bad, he is not as powerful as he would later prove to be inBetter Call Saul.However, as a mostly non-verbal communicative person, he is a strong-willed and memorable supporting character. Gus mostly shows up to visit Hector when he wants to let him know how many more members of his family have died at his hands anddelivered the most shocking death in season 4.
Oz
Oz was a crime-drama series from HBO created by Tom Fontana. The series focuses on the inmates and officers of the fictional experimental Oswald State Correctional Facility. The prison, prioritizing rehabilitation instead of corrective punishment, navigates the fragile social cliques within its halls, where tensions never relent.
Before he got his career-changing role onBreaking Bad, Mark Margolis was a star in the acclaimed HBO prison seriesOz. This was a series that focused on a fictional prison, its inmates, and the people who ran it. In this series,Margolis appeared in the second, third, and sixth seasons as Antonio Nappa, a prisoner who took control of the Sicilians after Peter Schibetta (Eddie Malavacra) had his Mental breakdown following his sexual assault.
During his time in control of the Sicilian gangs at Oz, he has considerable power and is someone who is able to bring people down and even have enemies killed (including Anthony Criss’s Snake Coyle). However, he loses his power in season 3 when Simon Adebisi (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) purposefully injects him with an HIV-infected needle, forcing him out of the general population. Although it never won any major awards,Ozremains one of the best HBO series of all time.
Scarface
Brian De Palma’s iconic crime drama is loosely based on the 1929 novel of the same name and follows Cuban refugee Tony Montana (Al Pacino), who begins a life of crime after arriving in Miami. It chronicles his rise from a penniless thug to one of the richest and most ruthless kingpins in the world, amassing a criminal empire worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Thebest movie that Mark Margolis ever appeared in came early in his career isScarface. Brian De Palma worked with Margolis inDressed to Killin 1980 in an uncredited role, but then he cast him in a much more important role in the 1983 iconic gangster movieScarface. The movie stars Al Pacino as Tony Montana, a Cuban refugee who enters America and starts building a mafia empire. However, as with all major drug dealers of that era, he had to work with others, including Bolivian drug lord Alejandro Sosa.
The Shadow is a very scary character and a memorable one in this cult classic.
Mark Margolis plays Alberto The Shadow, the right-hand man of Sosa. He appears early in the film, revealing that Omar, who is visiting Bolivia with Tony, is a snitch, which gets Omar killed. Tony then begins to work for Sosa, but then he murders The Shadow in one of the most shocking scenes in the movie, a moment that shows that even Tony has morals that he won’t cross. The Shadow is a very scary character and a memorable one in this cult classic.
Better Call Saul
Better Call Saul follows small-time lawyer Jimmy McGill as he navigates the legal world to make ends meet. The series, set six years before his encounter with Walter White, chronicles Jimmy’s evolution into Saul Goodman, with notable interactions alongside fixer Mike Ehrmantraut.
The best performance of Mark Margolis’s career came when he reprised his role as Hector Salamanca inBetter Call Saul. What makes this bigger than hisBreaking Badrole is that he appeared in 22 episodes of the prequel series, and this showed Hector while he was still on top and in control before he was mostly non-communicative after his stroke in this series. InBetter Call Saul, the series allows him to show how powerful he was before that stroke, and it really made his character shine.
WhenBetter Call Saulstarts, Hector is still the don of the Salamanca drug organization, and while older, he is still calling the shots. He also spent 17 years in prison but never turned over evidence on any of his associates, something that defined him all the way until his death later inBreaking Bad. He was also responsible here for the death of Gus’s partner, which caused a rivalry that lasted untilBreaking Bad. WhileMark Margholisnever won an award for his performance, he was still part of one of television’s most respected dramas.
