M. Emmett Walsh, an actor who played more than 220 roles in film and television, including Blade Runner, Knives Out and the Coen brothers’ Straight Blood and Arizona Raised, has died at 88 years .

Walsh’s manager Sandy Joseph confirmed to Variety that he died on Tuesday in Vermont.

Born in New York in 1935 and raised in Vermont, Walsh had his first uncredited film role—an extra in Midnight Cowboy—and his first role in Alice’s Diner, both in 1969.

He played a sports reporter in Paul Newman’s comedy Slap (1977), parole officer Dustin Hoffman in Right Time (1978), a sniper who hunts down Steve Martin in Jerk Off (1979), and a police chief Los Angeles, bringing Harrison Ford out of retirement in Blade Runner (1982).

Walsh told The Hollywood Reporter in 2017 that Blade Runner was the film he was asked about the most, saying that after watching the finished product, “I didn’t know what to say or think or do! I didn’t know that the only one who seemed to get it was Ridley.

He also had small roles in the film Fletch (1985) and the horror film Beasts (1986), as well as Nicolas Cage’s chatty sidekick in Raising Arizona (1987), John Lithgow’s father in Harry and the Hendersons (1987). and sponsor Michael Keaton. in Clean and Sober (1988). He also appeared in Romeo + Juliet (1996), My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997), The Iron Giant (1999), Calvary (2014), and Knives Away (2019).

“I have more fun playing 10 different people than playing the same person 10 different times,” he once told the Houston Chronicle. “One day he’s a scavenger, the next he’s the president of Princeton.”

His most recent role was in the 2024 Western film Rogue One alongside Whoopi Goldberg and Cedric the Entertainer.

In seven decades of television work, Walsh has appeared on shows such as Starsky and Hutch, Frasier, The Twilight Zone, The X-Files, Home Improvement and Adventure Time. One of his last roles was the role of Grandpa Roy in the film “Righteous Gemstones”. (news.ro)