While the cast of Waco is universally great, the actor tasked with portraying David Koresh
frequently steals the show.
That actor is Taylor Kitsch, and while he's all but unrecognizable in the role, you've
absolutely seen his face before.
As an actor, Kitsch has been around for a couple of decades now, and has built an impressive
acting résumé.
That résumé includes a memorable stint in one of HBO's most critically adored shows.
Unfortunately, that stint ended up coming in the season of the series that critics liked
the least.
The show in question is, of course, HBO's anthology crime saga True Detective, which
premiered to rave reviews in the winter of 2014 behind the work of Matthew McConaughey,
Woody Harrelson, and series director Cary Joji Fukunaga.
Sadly, none of those talented individuals returned for True Detective's second season.
Instead, series creator Nic Pizzolatto conjured up a new tale of cops and criminals for the
show's second run of episodes.
In doing so, he also put together a seriously impressive cast to bring those stories to
light, with Rachel McAdams, Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn, Kelly Reilly and more joining
Kitsch for the series second go-'round.
It…could've gone better.
"It's functionally impossible to give you a synopsis of this season."
With such a stacked cast, season 2 may well have provided too much of a good thing for
Pizzolatto and his writing team, as they struggled through an underwhelming, tragically unfocused
run of episodes overstuffed with too many characters and narrative entanglements.
Though Kitsch's character, Paul Woodrugh, was frequently at the center of the season's
melodrama, he was just as frequently among its more interesting individuals, coping with
a treasure trove of personal anguish and inner demons that would've been enough for an entire
season of television in and of themselves.
Like many up-and-coming actors, Taylor Kitsch's early years were spotted with supporting roles
opposite bigger names.
Like many young actors, Taylor Kitsch was once gifted a coveted role in an aspiring
blockbuster with full-on franchise potential.
And, like so many young aspiring superstars before him, things didn't quite work out.
To be fair, that doesn't have much to do with Kitsch, himself.
The truth is, there are not many people in or out of showbiz who could tell you exactly
what went wrong with Disney's 2012 tentpole, John Carter.
It had all the makings of a surefire, family-friendly, crowd-pleasing hit…until it got released.
When John Carter finally hit theaters in 2012, it did so behind a middling critical response,
and crippling word of mouth, with the film's unintentional campiness most frequently mentioned
as its biggest problem.
Not surprisingly, the film, which is nowhere near as bad as you've heard, became one of
the biggest box office bombs in Disney history, claiming just north of $73 million at U.S.
box offices, and barely recouping its mammoth budget with its worldwide take of just over
$284 million.
Though it's quite likely you've seen Kitsch in one of his big-screen roles over the years,
it's far more likely you recognize him from his early days on television.
Kitsch did, after all, feature prominently in one of the best-loved dramas of the 2000s,
one that also proved small-screen adaptations of big-screen successes aren't always doomed
to failure.
Based on the 2004 film of the same name, the TV show in question is NBC's rousing sports
drama, Friday Night Lights.
If you somehow slept on the book, the movie, and the series, Friday Night Lights follows
the travails of a coach and the players of a powerhouse football program in a small Texas
town.
Among Friday Night Lights' young cast were future stars like Jesse Plemmons, Adrienne
Palicki, and Michael B. Jordan.
Taylor Kitsch also appeared in 68 of the show's 76 episodes as the roguish star running back
Tim Riggins.
If we aren't being too bold, we'd say he was frequently brilliant on the series, imbuing
his stoic character with a natural charisma and hard-earned wisdom even as he was frequently
boozing it up and generally running amok all over town.
Of course, if you do recognize Kitsch from one of his big-screen ventures, it's entirely
likely that venture came in his better-than-the-film turn as Gambit in 2009's dreadful X-Men Origins:
Wolverine.
If you happen to recognize Kitsch from another movie, however, it may well be for his hilarious
appearance in the Samuel L. Jackson-starring, horror-tinged camp-fest the world came to
know as Snakes on a Plane.
If you managed to miss Kitsch in the film, it's because he wasn't actually in Snakes
on a Plane for very long.
In fact, his randy newlywed was one of the first characters to die.
Fortunately, it was far from the last we'd see of Kitsch and, as his Waco performance
indicates, he has plenty more left in the tank.
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