Robert Patrick was once the go-to guy for playing stoic badasses in huge franchises. For starters, he managed to match up to Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2: Judgement Day as the evil, shape-shifting and mostly silent cyborg sent back in time to hunt down John Connor. In addition to that, he also had the unenviable task of replacing David Duchovny’s Agent Mulder on The X-Files, and once again rose to the occasion as Agent John Doggett, the taciturn detective with a troubled past.
Of course, Patrick went on to portray a number of roles across many different movies and TV shows, but never with quite the same level of success as his two earlier gigs. With both the Terminator and X-Files franchises going through a phase of reboots with familiar faces back at their center though, fans naturally want to know if there’s a chance that he’d also be a part of upcoming installments in either series.
According to the actor, he’s more than willing to oblige, with Patrick having said the following in a recent interview:
“Yeah. All of it. All of it, man. The industry’s changing. You navigate the best you can, you try to get the best material you can. Your creative integrity is based solely on your financial integrity, you’ve got your life to lead, you’ve got a craft that you’re trying to do, you’re trying to improve and get better at, you’re trying to get access to the best material, you’re trying to put your kid through college. You’ve got all sorts of shit going on.”
“I just love to work,” Patrick continued. “I’m my best human being when I’m working doing what I love to do, and that’s acting. And so, I try to find the best parts I can do, and just keep my career moving. All of the stuff that I’ve done, if someone was to come back to me and say, ‘Hey. You want to take another crack at it?’ I would say, ‘Sure. Let’s go for it.’ I don’t think I’ve always felt that way, but now I do. So, there you go. I contradict [myself].”
The actor’s sentiments echo those of many others who’ve voiced their desire to balance their inner artist’s need for creativity with the more baser need to make a living off of your craft. And those who’ve followed his career will know that Patrick’s always been the kind of actor who’s taken his roles in big budget franchises backed by huge production houses just as seriously as smaller, more content-driven fare.
Hopefully, we’ll soon see him lending his trademark gravitas to the next Terminator or X-Files project but until then, you can catch Robert Patrick in crime drama Honest Thief, which arrives in 2020.
