Where Are They Now - Christmas Supporting Actors

Now that the Christmas adverts have started, we’ve finally entered the festive season. This may mean that it’s time for Christmas songs, manic shopping, and cold weather. The good news is that it’s also time for classic movies on TV. To celebrate this we’d thought we’d look at where the actors of yesteryear are now. But not the Bruce Willis’ and Macauley Culkins, but the secondary actors we loved.

Reginald VelJohnson Aka Sgt. Al Powell (Die Hard)

Arguably the greatest 80s movie, we couldn’t miss out on Die Hard. In keeping with our theme of going for one of the smaller characters, my first choice was hulking mercenary Karl, played by Russian defector Alexander Godunov. Sadly he passed away in 1995 so I decided to choose another character. Sgt. Al Powell, aka Reginald VelJohnson

This veteran actor has spent his life playing law enforcement agents. One of his first roles was a corrections office in Ghostbusters and he’s played police in Die Hard, Turner and Hooch and a large number of TV shows. This has continued right up until recently where he appeared as a policeman in 2016 on the show Girl Meets World. With his advancing age, he has thankfully progressed a bit through his career in the Law and now often plays Judge characters. Including one in the brilliant trial episode of Always Sunny. He continues to act and is attached to at least one project coming out in 2018

Daniel Stern Aka Marv Merchants (Home Alone)

Home Alone is a staple of Christmas movie playlists and with good reason, the heartwarming tale of the McAllister family leaving their son behind is both fun, a little sad and very festive. For this movie, I did want to highlight Robert Blossom, or old man Marley as you might know him. But Sadly he died in 2011, instead, I thought we’d focus on bumbling crook #2, Daniel Stern.

One half of the Wet / Sticky Bandits, Daniel Stern had already acted a lot by the time Home Alone came around and he continued to be a Hollywood mainstay throughout the 90s. With the turn of the century, he settled down into more TV roles such as being the voice of Dilbert and bit parts in other shows and DTV movies. He continues to work into 2018 and is happily looking more and more like a wizard as the years go on.

Zach Galligan Aka Billy Peltzer (Gremlins)

Gremlins is another one of those movies that may not be Christmassy but is certainly based in the season. In 1984 it made stars of its cast members Zach Galligan, Pheobe Cates and of course the furry little Mogwai Gizmo. While Pheobe hasn’t really done a film in years, Zach is still in the game so we’ll focus on him. The less said about Gizmo the better.

Zach Galligan never really hit the highs again like he did with Gremlins but he is still steadily acting to this present day. His earlier career has typecast him slightly and a fair number of B movie style horror flicks feature in his filmography. Zach is actually happy things turned out as they did as he avoided the drugs and excess spiral which claimed so many 80s stars. He currently has two movies in post-production as well and shows no sign of slowing down in 2018

Bobcat Goldthwaite aka Eliot Loudermilk (Scrooged)

I love Scrooged with every fiber of my being. It’s both a parody send-up of Christmas movies and also one of the most Christmassy films going. I challenge anyone not to have a little smile with the final shot and the credits mayhem. Our secondary character from this film is Eliot Loudermilk, played by the instantly recognizable Bobcat Goldthwaite.

No matter his role it is far more likely that you will know Bobcat via his crazy sounding accent. His high pitched, ranting, grating voice made him stand out in Police Academy and has suited him well ever since. With mainly voice acting roles from the 90s onwards, he eventually moved into becoming a director as well as an actor and continues to work into 2018. He’s recently adopted a hat and shades style look which means he either looks like an aging hipster or a country singer. Either way, it seems to be working for him.

Fozzie Bear As Fozziwig (a muppets Christmas carol)

A lot of the films on this list are not quite your traditional Christmas movies. So it’s nice to end with something wholesome. A Muppets Christmas Carol is just the right kind of family movie to warm up a cold December evening. Who can forget the role of Fozziwig played by the classic comedy loving Fozzie Bear?

Fozzie has been on our screens since the late 70s where he has often worked with other members of the Muppets in various tv shows and movies. He has appeared in 10 feature films, countless live performances and even on WWE Monday Night Raw, although he didn’t actually wrestle a match. Now in his 5th decade of work, this acting powerhouse looks set to continue to grace our screens for years to come, he doesn’t even look a day over 30.