11.   -- is familiar to viewers with an eye for character actors.

12.   A character actor?

13.   A cop drama is only as good as the integral character actors the producers hire.

14.   A character actor with a respectable theater and film career, Lithgow viewed the prospect of appearing on television with a disdain largely typical among his acting friends.

15.   A character actor with leading-man looks, he is remembered for some powerful performances.

16.   A decade earlier, his father, the veteran character actor Rance Howard, had moved the family from Oklahoma to Hollywood, where they pursued their parallel careers.

17.   After this independent film with a cast of top-flight character actors was shown at the Sundance Festival early this year, Miramax snapped it up for national distribution.

18.   Bridges almost literally disappears into his roles--quite content it seems to be a character actor in leading-man disguise.

19.   But that character actor, in the last few years, has been getting a lot of work.

20.   But the two are character actors and not potential movie stars.