Like all great storytellers, Tom Skerritt was an observer. He loved to tell you that he learned about acting and filmmaking on the job, lucky enough to stand alongside masters like Robert Altman and Ridley Scott early in his career, absorbing everything he could about the art of moviemaking. And he loved to tell you stories about those early years in which he learned so much about his craft by watching. There are a lot of grizzled old men who love to tell you about their glory days from the corner of a bar, but what was special about Skerritt was how these intertwined interests of learning, storytelling, and observing could be so easily seen in his work. Great character actors, and Skerritt was a truly underrated one, study the human condition, taking in what they learn not just about filmmaking but the people that they meet, turning those habits, dreams, and personality quirks into art.
Tom Skerritt didn’t often take on what one could call “quirky” roles. For many, he was playing father figures for as long as they can remember, and he often imbued those authoritative parts with gravitas. But he found that weight through very specific choices. There’s a certain type of world-weary performer—think Tom Waits or Harry Dean Stanton or Sam Shepard—that people mistakenly presume is easy: Crotchety old men playing variations on themselves. This is wildly untrue, especially in the case of Skerritt. It’s not easy imbuing every part you play with specific history, but it felt true of Skerrit. His characters existed before the cameras started rolling, and, if they were lucky enough not to meet an alien, kept going when the credits rolled. That’s where the gravitas comes from: Detailed choices made by someone who honestly loved both the form of acting and the people who made it possible for him to do it.
Born in Detroit, Thomas Skeriitt was a veteran, doing a four-year stint in the U.S. Air Force before finding his way to the University of California, where he was bit by the acting bug. His breakthrough wouldn’t come until 1970’s “M*A*S*H,” but he had already been working for nearly a decade at this point, making appearances on some huge ‘60s shows like “My Favorite Martian,” “The Fugitive,” “Gunsmoke,” and “Bonanza.” He would use the Altman comedy as a springboard to work with some of the pioneers of the era, including Hal Ashby (“Harold and Maude”), Herbert Ross (“The Turning Point”), and even a Roger Corman classic (“Big Bad Mama”), but the role for which he will always likely be most remembered is that of Captain Arthur Dallas in Ridley Scott’s “Alien.”
The film is so strongly remembered for the work of Sigourney Weaver and the creature design that people often forget how essential the entire ensemble of “Alien” was to make it a classic. John Hurt, Yaphet Kotto, Ian Holm, Harry Dean Stanton, Veronica Cartwright, and Tom Skerritt filled out a cast that would change sci-fi/horror history, and they did so by finding that aforementioned veracity. “Alien” is about working-class space travelers, and Skerritt helps ground that aspect of the piece in how his confident leadership gives way to abject terror. He also smartly knew that he wasn’t the hero, never stealing focus with the kind of showy performance that wouldn’t have worked opposite Weaver. Like so many people on the Nostromo, Dallas is just trying to do his job, and that reality can be seen in so many of Skerritt’s smart choices as an actor.
Skerritt gave a few fun performances in the ‘80s like “SpaceCamp” and “Steel Magnolias,” but it was his turn as CDR “Viper” Metcalf in “Top Gun” that again shot him into the pop culture stratosphere. His most underrated run as a performer might come in the ‘90s, when he made “A River Runs Through It,” “Singles,” and “Contact,” consecutively. The big break chronologically between those last two was taken up by “Picket Fences,” a huge hit for CBS that won Skerritt an Emmy. He never stopped popping up on TV shows and was a part of the legacy of “Cheers,” “Roseanne,” “Will & Grace,” and “The West Wing.”
Film roles became more sporadic in his old age, but he loved working into his eighties, including a memorable role in the excellent “Lucky,” his last great turn, and a fitting epitaph to his career. So many incredible people in that movie are gone now: Stanton, David Lynch, and Skerritt. But the work remains.
Watch the clip below and experience these two lost legends finding so much truth in such a simple interaction. There’s a line that Stanton’s Lucky says in the film: “The truth of the universe is waiting.” Tom Skerritt didn’t wait; he found that truth in everything he did.
