Labine's following can be largely credited to his ongoing work in the sci-fi genre. One of his first jobs was on an episode of "The X-Files," and he starred on the cult TV shows "Invasion" and "Reaper." The latter has been perhaps his most recognizable role to date; as slow-witted but lovable sidekick Sock, Labine somehow made a familiar character fresh and lovable. He brings those same qualities to his role as a good-natured hillbilly in "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil," a comedy from director Eli Craig that manages to parody and pay homage to the horror genre (opening Sept. 30). In the film Alan Tudyk plays Tucker to Labine's Dale, and the two friends just want to enjoy a nice vacation at their cabin in the woods. A few simple misunderstandings cause a group of college students to think the two are trying to kill them, and in their attempts to "save" themselves, disaster ensues. It's a bloody good time, and the pairing of Labine and Tudyk is a geek's dream come true. "Last Comic-Con, I was with Alan," Labine notes. "And if I'm a hero, Alan is a superhero. People just love him; they flip out over him. And rightfully so—he's a fantastic actor."
Below, four more things you might not know about Labine.
1. He got an early start.
Audiences might not realize Labine has been a professional actor since he was 9. Growing up in Ontario, Canada, Labine and his two brothers would run around making movies with their dad's Betacam. "One day my parents asked if we wanted to do this for real," Labine recalls. "We were like, 'What do you mean—we are doing this for real!' But it was actually very intuitive of them to see their kids needed that creative outlet." All three signed up with a Toronto agency and were soon going on auditions. But Labine admits he never really thought of acting as a feasible career. "I thought I would be a teacher; I think my eventual goal was to be the principal of my old high school," he says. While in college, he landed the teen comedy-drama "Breaker High," on which he co-starred opposite future superstar Ryan Gosling. But it wasn't until he was flown to Los Angeles to test for a pilot that he started to realize he had what it took to be a working actor. "I didn't get that job, but I was brought in on another one and ended up booking it. Suddenly it didn't seem like a pipe dream to be a Canadian boy working in L.A. Once I actually moved to L.A., I realized everyone is Canadian—why didn't I do this sooner?" Labine called his experience working on that short-lived first show, aptly titled "Dead Last," a boot camp for doing American series. "I continued to book work, it kept happening, and I've been grinding my ass off for 12 years now."
2. He has been on TV for the last eight years—just different shows.
Labine is about to shoot his eighth pilot, "Guidance," which he is co-producing with Ryan Reynolds for Fox. Out of his seven previous pilots, six went to air, but "Reaper" was the only recent one to last more than a season. "My friends make jokes about me being like Ted McGinley," Labine says of the actor who has been unkindly dubbed a "show killer." He adds, "People love to point a finger, especially on the Internet, so that can be frustrating. But I really didn't think of it that way. I was like, 'Man, I'm so lucky I get to keep doing more work!' " He admits to wondering why certain programs didn't quite work. "With 'Invasion,' we had good ratings—I don't know what happened there. And 'Reaper,' I think it was plain and simple: Dawn Ostroff didn't like the show. It's just so out of your hands, and as an artist you feel like a used tissue at the end of the day. It's hard when you put a year of good work into something and someone at the top says no, and they pull your show's title off a bulletin board and chuck it in the trash."
3. He's moving from sidekick to star.
Though he has played a lot of sidekicks over the years, Labine says he has never felt his roles were two-dimensional. His secret? "My character's backstory is that everything is about me," he says with a laugh. "Not out of my own ego, but from my character standpoint. I tend to make them self-absorbed, but they'll come through in a clinch." Labine says he has recently been asked to play more leading roles. "I think there's this new kind of character; it's a sidekick–slash–leading man role. People like Zach Galifianakis and Seth Rogen have been really successful in those roles. You don't have to be this square-jawed, chiseled, deep-voiced Superman; you can be funny and normal and put in the leading man category." He acknowledges that it doesn't work the same way for women, and he says that in recent films he has been paired with "disproportionately hot" women. "My biggest concern with 'Tucker & Dale' was when I had to kiss Katrina Bowden," he reveals. "I told Eli, 'I don't think people will want to see me kiss her; she's 21 and gorgeous, and I'm this big hairy guy.' He told me to trust him, and the first time I watched it at Sundance, people cheered!" It helps that, as played by Labine, Dale is completely adorable. "I tried to play everything like Dale was just some big dumb animal. I didn't know that was a formula for women thinking I'm sweet. I've got to start playing dumb more often."
4. He assumed he would be cast as Tucker, not Dale.
Precisely because Dale is more of a leading man—complete with a romantic story line—Labine assumed Craig wanted him to play Tucker. "When he told me he wanted me to be Dale, I got really excited because it was a very different role for me," Labine admits. "A lot of people might not think it's a nuanced, subtle performance, but Eli had to strip away a lot of my shtick." Labine was the first actor on board, and he says he and Craig truly took a leap of faith with each other. "He knew me from 'Reaper' and told me he saw something underneath my bravado that looked really sweet and innocent. He really took a chance on me. And I trusted him. We both took a chance on each other."
