From "Finding Nemo" to "Dirty Work"

By Chris Karr in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 3, 2006 5:59PM

Steppenwolf ensemble member Austin Pendleton is one of those guys that you seem to see in a ton of movies. He's been in things like The Muppet Movie and Finding Nemo, My Cousin Vinny, "Oz" on HBO, and so on. The guy gets around.

Tomorrow night, he'll be presenting his latest work at at the Midwest Indy - Dirty Work. In the film, he plays the role of Julian, a local Chicago crime boss who is one of four characters who deals with the after-effects of a particularly brutal crime. (It's kind of like Crash, but set in Chicago.) Roger Ebert's take:

I don't know where Julian came from or how he rose to become Chicago's cruelest crime boss, but at least he isn't recycled from a thousand other movies. He's new. I have a theory about why all the tough guys are terrified of him, even though at times he seems to be channeling Santa from the "Kranks." It's as simple as this: When that crazy little (12-letter noun) gets that weird look in his eyes, you don't want to (four-letter verb) with him.

Showtime is at 7:30 PM tomorrow at the Landmark Century theater on Clark and Diversey. After the show, he'll be fielding questions with the director and producer. So, give it a look and ask him what it was like playing a fish for us.