Lance Reddick

Reddick's professional breakthrough didn't happen overnight. He spent time in smaller TV roles before HBO's Oz gave him real traction — he played undercover detective Johnny Basil in the show's fourth season (2000–01), a role that demonstrated he could carry morally complicated material without flinching (Wikipedia). That opened the door to The Wire, where he spent six years (2002–2008) as Lieutenant Cedric Daniels, a character who spent the whole series trying to do the right thing inside a system that punished exactly that. It's one of the great slow-burn performances in prestige TV history, and it's genuinely hard to imagine anyone else in that role. From there, Reddick built one of the more quietly impressive multi-franchise careers in the business. Fringe (2008–2013) cast him as Phillip Broyles, the Homeland Security division chief who served as the show's moral anchor across five seasons. He showed up in Lost as the mysterious Matthew Abaddon (2004–2010). Bosch brought him back to law enforcement as Chief Irvin Irving from 2014 to 2020. Parallel to all of this, he was voicing Commander Zavala in Bungie's Destiny franchise and lending his likeness to Sylens in Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West — a gaming presence that introduced him to an entirely different generation of fans (TMDB). In film, General Caulfield in White House Down (2013) was an early credit, but Charon in the John Wick series — that deadpan, unshakeable hotel concierge who somehow makes checking in a guest feel like a scene from a Greek tragedy — became the role casual moviegoers most associated with him. He appeared in all four mainline John Wick films between 2014 and 2023, with the fifth installment, Ballerina, set for posthumous release (Wikipedia). His final year also included The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023) and the posthumous Percy Jackson role, which earned him an Emmy nomination. Hard to say if the industry fully appreciated what it had while it had him.