Don Cheadle isn't Easy. In 1995's Devil in a Blue Dress, Denzel Washington plays the laidback, don't-want-any-trouble, private dick Easy Rawlins with a slow swagger and a quiet dignity. But as events start to railroad poor honest Easy in a particularly messy investigation, he's forced to call upon the talents of the mythic Mouse, a shady character from his past. The quart-sized, gold-toothed, nattily dressed, wisecracking 1940s gangsta Mouse bursts onto—and almost out of—the screen, guns blazing. His charismatic, scary presence injects this neo-noir tale with some much-needed humor and tension. Unlike Washington's smooth portrayal, Cheadle's Mouse is about electricity, not nobility—and he immediately amps the film up to a new level. This wasn't Cheadle's film debut—that was as the homicidal, and practically mute, Rocket in 1988's Colors—but it may as well as have been, because this was the role that rocketed the young Cheadle into the public eye.
As he has admitted, the fact that this role didn't get him nominated for an Academy Award—after nabbing him the L.A. Film Critics and National Board of Review supporting actor awards—may actually have gotten him more press than if he had been nominated. He may have been overlooked by the Academy but not by Hollywood directors, who in the past decade have made Cheadle one of the most prolific and sought-after character actors on the big screen. "I've been really fortunate to visit a lot of different people," Cheadle once told the L.A. Times, regarding his characters. "It's just that the gangsters make the most noise."
He's not lying. While Cheadle has done excellent work as a country-music-lovin' semi-pornstar in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights and as a dead-on Sammy Davis Jr. in The Rat Pack, it's his roles as the antacid-gobbling dealer, L.D., in Warren Beatty's flawed Bulworth and the myopic, murderous "Snoopy" Miller in Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight that have made the biggest splash. These dark and dangerous characters are more an indication of the still-limited roles available to young black men in Hollywood today than any natural inclination on Cheadle's part. Born in Kansas City, Mo., raised in Denver, the son of a psychologist and a bank manager, Cheadle's thug performances come from observation more than experience—something the actor's not ashamed to admit: "I don't want to come home damaged and depressed and wanting to shoot heroin. I have two kids and a family that I care about. I've got to create strong characters so that I'm not taking too much of me."
Moreover, weaned in the theatre (a degree from CalArts, stints at the Guthrie and the Public), Cheadle is very clear-eyed about the business of the business, shrugging off the occasional blockbuster fare to which he has lent his talents—Volcano, Mission to Mars. "The blockbuster is a weird beast," he said in a past interview. "It resembles acting enough to confuse you, but this business is about making money."
Luckily, Cheadle's charisma and castability have not prevented him from making time for some quality pictures, as well—most recently Traffic. Soderbergh's drug-war epic allowed this actor to do what he does best—steal the movie with a character role. It's something Cheadle loves to do. "Usually, the person who's a step down—who's an obstacle character or antagonist—they're always going to have more fun because they don't necessarily have to hit the same beats as the hero does. You just get to hit more curves."
When it comes to hitting curves, character actor Don Cheadle is batting 1.000.