Stephen Lang

Stephen Lang
Biographical Information
Born	July 11, 1952
Birth Name	Stephen Lang
Nationality	American
Gender	Male
Hair Color	White
Career
Years Active	1980–present
Avatar Role	Colonel Quaritch

It's the people who come up to me and whisper, "I really like Quaritch and I kind of agree with him." Then those folks, I kind of go, "Well, then I don't really want to know you."

Lang on Quaritch idolizers

Stephen Lang (born July 11, 1952) is an American film actor who started in theatre on Broadway. While currently represented by Innovative Artists, he is co-artistic director (along with Carlin Glynn and Lee Grant) of the famed Actor's Studio at its headquarters in New York City.

He portrays the main antagonist Colonel Miles Quaritch in Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water. He is to return in the Avatar sequels. He also voiced Quaritch in the video game.

Biography

A stage actor of great recognition, Stephen Lang has shaped a formidable career on and off the various stages of the United States and abroad.

Broadway roles include a Tony-nominated performance as a homeless man in 'The Speed of Darkness', Happy in the Dustin Hoffman revival of 'Death of a Salesman', Colonel Jessep in A Few Good Men, and a thief alongside Quentin Tarantino and Marisa Tomei in Wait Until Dark.

Off-Broadway credits include John Patrick Shanley's Defiance, Anne Nelson's The Guys, Arthur Miller's Finishing the Picture, and his own play Beyond Glory for which he received a Helen Hayes Award nomination.

Television and Film credits include celebrated performances as Babe Ruth and Stonewall Jackson in Babe Ruth and Gods and Generals respectively, as well as acclaimed performances in Last Exit to Brooklyn, Tombstone, Gettysburg, Michael Mann's hit TV show Crime Story, and an NBC revival of The Fugitive featuring Tim Daly.

Stephen Lang auditioned for the role of Corporal Dwayne Hicks in James Cameron's Aliens (1986) but lost to James Remar, who was then replaced by Michael Biehn.

In 2009, he starred in Michael Mann's Public Enemies alongside Avatar co-star Giovanni Ribisi. However, the two never share the same scene or met each other until the premiere of the first Avatar, they showed a great relationship.

In 2023. he attended the premiere of Showtime's "Waco: The Aftermath" that Ribisi was starred at Crosby Hotel on April 12, 2023 in New York City and later, he was the leader in 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, with Ribisi supported his funded for strike and actors.

Lang has been nominated for and won numerous awards including the Grace Prize, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Helen Hayes, and Tony awards.

Avatar series

Stephen Lang talked about how he joined the series:

"I was doing my solo show Beyond Glory, which is a military play, when Avatar came along. I was already in shape so that I could do that, because it’s just me up there the whole time and I had to look that part. Beyond Glory made its way to Broadway around 2007, and there were quarter-page ads of me looking like a badass military dude in a sleeveless tee shirt in The New York Times. Margery Simkin, who was James Cameron’s casting director, saw the ad and mentioned to him that I could make a great Colonel Quaritch. Jim actually already knew of my work, and had almost cast me in Aliens.

So from there I got the call that Cameron wanted to meet me. I was doing my play, and the last show of the week was at 3 in the afternoon on Sunday. They sent a plane ticket and a car to pick me up after that show to fly me to Los Angeles. They put me up at The Georgian on Ocean Boulevard and I was set to meet Jim the next day at his house in Malibu.

I must have done a thousand pushups that night. I would do a few hundred, get into bed, and lie there until I thought I could probably do a few hundred more. I got to his house and we just started to run scenes in his kitchen. A few hours later, we were done. I handed back the script, which had my name on it, and headed out. I felt pretty good on my way to the airport, and my phone was buzzing, but I didn’t want to answer it. I knew that I had it, but I also knew it was possible for whatever reason that I didn’t get it. I didn’t check my phone until I was back in New York, and that’s when I knew it for real."

Because Cameron wanted Quaritch to look massive, Lang had to take his training to a whole new level and so he trained hard from about 2007 to 2010, but refused to take steroids to get there. Lang said he is usually around 155 pounds and was around 190 when shooting Avatar. During the filming of Avatar, Stephen Lang briefly blacked out in one take in which he was struck in the chest by Neytiri's arrows.

After the film was released, Lang learned during the shooting of Avatar about his potential return in the sequel. During a Producer's Guild Awards dinner in 2010, James Cameron informed him that he would indeed return.

For the Avatar sequels, this required a different skillset of abilities to learn. Lang said, "This was parkour, archery, knife fighting, taekwondo, staff fighting, and swimming. I did everything to the best of my ability. There wasn’t any vocalized brief on how I needed to look, but my personal brief for when I walked on that stage was that I wanted people to have to give respect when I walked up. I want everyone else to feel bad about themselves. That’s the Quaritch persona." Although Lang was a certified scuba diver for the last 20 years, he still need to learn freediving.

Lang gave an interview about his relationship between Quaritch and Selfridge before Avatar: The Way of Water, he revealed that they have a good relationship that become more complicated in next film, however, Selfridge was not with Quaritch like the first film than video log in short time, so this means they will share the scene and exploring again in Avatar 3,

The scene in which Recom Quaritch discovers his human corpse and eventually crushes its skull was suggested by Lang. James Cameron liked the idea and added the scene to the script.

Filmography

• Death of a Salesman (1985)
• Twice in a Lifetime (1985)
• Band of the Hand (1986)
• Manhunter (1986)
• Project X (1987)
• Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989)
• The Hard Way (1991)
• Another You (1991)
• Human Cargo (1992)
• Guilty as Sin (1993)
• Gettysburg (1993)
• Tombstone (1993)
• Tall Tale (1995)
• The Amazing Panda Adventure (1995)
• Loose Women (1996)
• Gang in Blue (1996)
• An Occassional Hell (1996)
• Shadow Conspiracy (1997)
• Niagara, Niagara (1997)
• Fire Down Below (1997)
• Story of a Bad Boy (1999)
• Trixie (2000)
• The I Inside (2003)
• Code 11-14 (2003)
• Gods and Generals (2003)
• The Treatment (2006)
• Save Me (2007)
• From Mexico with Love (2008)
• Public Enemies along with Giovanni Ribisi (2009)
• The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)
• Avatar (2009)
• Conan the Barbarian (2011)
• Terra Nova (2011)
• In Plain Sight (2012)
• Officer Down (2013)
• Pawn (2013)
• The Gettysburg Story (2013)
• Pioneer (2013)
• The Monkey's Paw (2013)
• The Girl on the Train (2013)
• The Nut Job (2013)
• In the Blood (2014)
• Jarhead 2: Field of Fire (2014)
• A Good Marriage (2014)
• Gunshot Straight (2014)
• 23 Blast (2014)
• Exeter (2015)
• Band of Robbers (2015)
• Gridlocked (2015)
• Beyond Glory: Tour of Duty (2015)
• Isolation (2015)
• Don't Breathe (2016)
• Beyond Valkyrie: Dawn of the 4th Reich (2016)
• Hostiles (2017)
• Justice (2017)
• Mortal Engines (2018)
• The Gandhi Murder (2018)
• VFW (2019)
• Rogue Warfare (2019)
• Rogue Warfare: The Hunt (2019)
• Rogue Warfare: Death of a Nation (2020)
• Death in Texas (2020)
• The Seventh Day (2021)
• Don't Breathe 2 (2021)
• Old Man (Unknown)
• Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
• Avatar 3 (2025)
• Avatar 4 (2029)
• Avatar 5 (2031)

Trivia

• Stephen Lang said he was once approached by someone who said they agreed with Quaritch. Lang thought to himself, "I don't want to know you."
• At OmatiCon 2024 (an online convention for Avatar fans), Lang appeared. When asked a hypothetical question about another actor he would choose to portray Quaritch, Lang could not answer, and talked about how he felt he was meant to play the role. When asked about life advice, Lang said that everyone should try to be more kind, saying the world would be a lot better.
• Stephen Lang, Sam Worthington and Giovanni Ribisi are voice actors in the video game franchise Call Of Duty.
• Stephen Lang has previously portrayed military leaders from war movies such as General Stonewall Jackson from Gods and Generals. He is also known portraying the Blind Man from Don't Breathe and its 2021 sequel, which the latter was released a year before Avatar: The Way of Water.
• Stephen Lang and Giovanni Ribisi are the only actors that worked with Sam Raimi, Ribisi for The Gift and Lang for Don't Breath
• Stephen Lang and Giovanni Ribisi are closed and always meet each other in some occasional, they always teasing to each other, once Lang was mocking Ribisi accent while give an interview for The Way of Water.
• 2022, Lang and Ribisi didn't have interacted in Avatar: The Way of Water premier like the first film, because Ribisi wasn't in film's main cast,
• 2023, Lang attended Ribisi's premier of Waco: The Aftermath and have a reunion.
• Stephen Lang and Giovanni Ribisi is the most actor who worked together for more than 5 films, the first is Public Enemies and every Avatar films.
• Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi and Jack Champion are the only actors that played antagonists in horror films, Ribisi (The Gift), Lang (Don't Breath) and Champion (Scream VI).  

External Links

• Stephen Lang at the Internet Movie Database.
• Stephen Lang at Wikipedia.

References

See the image gallery for Stephen Lang