Zeljko Ivanek

Let me tell you a very long, somewhat confusing story about television.

My sister, mother and myself were HUGE fans of The X-Files when it first started in 1993. HUGE fans. My sister and I kinda ran with it and it became a flat out obsession. Ok, there was a character on the show, Krycek, played by Canadian actor Nicholas Lea, whom I thought was very, very cute. C'mon, it was the mid '90's and us "tweens" back then (hell, the ages 10-12 1/2, 13-ish, didn't even have a label, the word "tween" didn't exist) didn't have a lot of fodder outside of Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and I hated Home Improvement (yes, even as a child, I was a TV Snob) So, Nicholas Lea, before he was the evil Krycek played a somewhat inept police officer on the show The Commish. Cori and I would watch The Commish every day on summer break. It was in syndication by that time on Lifetime and we managed to fit it in somewhere between Days of our Lives and Oprah viewings. Well, the Commish of The Commish had his main sidekick cop, Stan, played by actor Geoffrey Nauffts (who really deserves a blog of his own, but isn't going to get one in the near future.)

Ok...still with me...this is the important part.

I remember very clearly one morning, it was still summer break, I do believe, Cori and I were sitting in the kitchen watching TV and a commercial for Homicide: Life on the Street came on (it was NBC, so we were probably watching Days...) and the guest actor for that week was Geoffrey Nauffts. "Stan!" I shouted, and pointed at the TV. Cori and I had a good laugh, "I'm totally going to watch that!" I declared, even though I had never in my life seen an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street. As I consult the IMDB, this particular episode aired in 1996. I was thirteen years old.

I watched the Homicide episode that week in my bedroom on my little TV and therein began the obsession for me.

I loved Homicide so much, when I was in high school, I joined the debate team (for some reason...that lasted all of one year...only school activity I ever participated in!) and I missed a debate practice night, I lied telling them I couldn't go for some legitimate sounding reason, when, in fact, I just wanted to go home and watch Homicide (uh, it was a two-part Law and Order crossover, so no way in hell was I missing that.)

Anyways. I loved, I love Homicide. It was my favorite show, and I dare say, it still is. I loved all the characters (I loved Bayliss the most) and this blog could easily turn into me talking about how much I loved that damn show, but that would be a huge digression.

One of my favorite characters was ADA Ed Danvers, played by Zeljko Ivanek. Yea, I don't really know how to pronounce his name either. He was such a sweet man, and even though he had to work against our detective heroes sometimes, he was always on their side, and we loved him for it.

After Homicide ended (sadness!), the shows head writer, Tom Fontana, gave Zeljko a job on his new brainchild over on HBO, Oz, as Evil Republican governor of the fictional state Oswald State Penitentiary is in, James Devlin.

You hated Gov. Devlin so very much. He was pro-death penalty (boo! hiss!) he wanted to shut down Emerald City (a pox on you, Governor!) He wasn't a cool, rock and roll governor like Jesse Venture, oh, no, he was oh so evil!

Then Oz ended in a flurry of musical numbers and gay lover spats. I shed a tear.

But now, I get excited whenever Zeljko Ivanke pops up in whatever it is I happen to be watching. True Blood!? Hi, there! "In Bruges", hey! Zeljko! How have you been? I was even excited when he won an Emmy last year and I had never even seen the show he won for! I was just excited for him, because, dammit he deserves it!

And then, this summer, I became obsessed with Heroes. And who should pop up on the entire third season of Heroes as the guy we all loved to hate, Agent Danko? Zeljko! Awww....yea!

Also, along with Peter Stormare, Zeljko Ivanek also has the honor of appearing in The Most Depressing Movie Ever Made, "Dancer in the Dark". Ugh.

I love that this actor is still working, and not only that, winning awards! Yay! I always love when obscure people I like receive accolades!

Oh, and he was in "Die Hard 4." Which isn't as bad as you would hope it would be.