Zareh Nicholas "Nick" Chinlund (born November 18, 1961) is an American actor.

Biography

Early life
Chinlund was born in New York City. He attended the Friends Seminary in Lower Manhattan, later moving to Albany, NY in order to participate in Albany High School's varsity basketball program. Chinlund had designs on further pursuing basketball at Brown University and majoring in history, but was sidelined with a shoulder injury. The resulting injury left a two inch scar on his left shoulder.


Career
With his narrow eyes and gravelly voice, Chinlund is frequently cast as villainous or smarmy characters. After appearing in small roles on episodic television, Chinlund came to prominence when he guest starred on The X-Files second season episode Irresistible playing serial killer Donnie Pfaster, for which he garnered major critical acclaim. In 2000 he had a small role in episode one of Gilmore Girls. In 2002 he had a recurring role in two episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer: "Listening to Fear" and "Into the Woods".

In recent years, Chinlund has been seen in several independent projects, notably A Brother's Kiss (1997). He also served as the executive producer of the film, which was directed by childhood friend Seth Zvi Rosenfeld. A Brother's Kiss was filmed in and around the neighborhood where Chinlund and Rosenfeld grew up. The film tells the story of two brothers, Lex (Chinlund) and Mick (Michael Raynor), who grow up in the hard streets of New York. Chinlund continued in his long vein of independent features with roles in Chutney Popcorn (1999), Amy's Orgasm (2001), Goodnight Joseph Parker (2004) and Sinner (2007).

Recently, Chinlund starred in a few big-screen movies, including Tears of the Sun (2003) with Bruce Willis, Con Air (1997) with Nicolas Cage, The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) with Vin Diesel and directed by David Twohy, who also directed Chinlund in the underwater thriller Below (2002), and Ultraviolet (2006) with Milla Jovovich. He also reprised his X-Files role as Donnie Pfaster for a seventh season episode called Orison. Chinlund was also in Training Day with Denzel Washington, Eraser with Arnold Schwarzenegger and The Legend of Zorro with Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Chinlund has also made guest appearances in the long-running TV drama series Law & Order, as well as in its spinoff, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Chinlund had originally screen-tested for the co-starring role of Elliot Stabler in the latter show, according to Christopher Meloni, who won the role.

As with his film roles, he played villainous roles in those two shows, most notably as a defense attorney and an unethical journalist in the original Law & Order, and a serial killer in Special Victims Unit. Chinlund also played an American-Indian Casino President and CEO, "Chief Doug Smith" in the fourth season episode Christopher of the hit HBO original series, The Sopranos. In 2009, he made an appearance on Castle in the first season episode "Home Is Where The Heart Stops". In 2010, he made an appearance on House in the sixth-season episode titled "The Down Low", playing a drug dealer named Eddie.

Best films