Tobin Bell
Tobin Bell
Tobin Bell is an American film and television character actor, known for his portrayal of John Kramer/Jigsaw of the Saw film series. After years of work doing stand-ins and background work on films, he got his first major acting job in Mississippi Burningand went on to star in made-for-television films and guest star in television shows throughout the 1990s...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth7 August 1942
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I was raised on Westerns. They were part of what going into the movies was.
Watching a child first learn to crawl on a carpet somehow has more significance to you as you get a little older. Perhaps it is that you have suffered more.
I learned that I could not do enough work; it's always incomplete. When you ask a question, the answer will raise four more questions, and those four will become eight.
All I can do is do my best work, try to create the best kind of moment to moment reality that I can do. That's what I do. I'm an actor. And all the rest of it is like baseball. You hit the ball. Sometimes it goes in the hole. Sometimes it goes to the player.
Im an actor. The fact that Im involved in Jigsaw, I dont approach Jigsaw any differently than I approached The Nordic in The Firm or FBI Agent Stokes in Mississippi Burning. Its the same deal. Its just that the effect is sometimes different. So I say, people ask me, How does it feel to be a horror icon? Im thrilled. Its great.
In the the late seventies and early eighties, I played background roles in thirty movies... Woody Allen movies, Scorsese films, you name it. Whatever was being shot in New York, I was doing stand-in and background work because I wanted to be close to the camera; I wanted to see what was going on.