Why Frank Kersey From Death Wish Looks So Familiar

As Hollywood continues to crank out an endless stream of remakes and re-imaginings, it's become clear very few properties are considered off limits. There are, of course, a handful of movies that might actually be well-served with the remake treatment. And at least on the surface, 1974's brutal revenge drama "Death Wish" was one them. That film saw Charles Bronson playing a successful architect who turns vigilante after his wife is murdered and daughter assaulted in a horrific home invasion. The film was renowned for its gritty narrative and over-the-top depictions of violence upon release, with audiences eating up the cracked tale of a mild-mannered man taking the law into his own hands. Even still, some of the film's biggest fans might agree its B-movie vibe often made "Death Wish" tough to watch.

Eli Roth sought to give "Death Wish" some serious blockbuster polish with his 2018 remake. While critics didn't endorse the film (per RottenTomatoes.com), audiences did to the tune of nearly $50 million at the box office, making "Death Wish" one of Bruce Willis' more lucrative endeavors in recent years. Ditto for many of his co-stars, some of whom no doubt looked familiar to fans of the remake. The actor who played Willis' onscreen brother Frank Kersey in "Death Wish" was no doubt one of them. Here's where you've seen him before. 

Vincent D'Onofrio is his name. And he's been as regular a presence in showbiz over the past few decades as any actor on the planet. If you do recognize him from somewhere, there's a good chance that you're a fan of Stanley Kubrick's harrowing anti-war drama "Full Metal Jacket." Kubrick unleashed that unholy beast of a film on the masses in the Summer of '87, and it quickly became another highlight among the director's all but unimpeachable oeuvre. 

Told in two distinct parts, "Full Metal Jacket" deftly explored the toll war takes on soldiers both before they head into combat, and after they've tasted first blood. Vincent D'Onofrio was the star of the show in the first part, which depicts the dehumanizing of prospective soldiers through the basic training process. Even in his limited screen time as Private Pyle, D'Onofrio delivered a show-stopping, and utterly heartbreaking performance that's the very definition of legendary. And it was only his third movie.

After his "Full Metal Jacket" breakout, D'Onofrio was booking gigs left and right — and doing so with some of the biggest names in film, including Oliver Stone ("JFK"), Robert Altman ("The Player"), and Tim Burton ("Ed Wood"). Those years also found him earning raves as one of Hollywood's most versatile and adventurous actors. As it was, the year 2000 found D'Onofrio appearing in several films cut from distinctly different cloth via the Abbie Hoffman biopic "Steal This Movie," the charming time-traveling rom-com "Happy Accidents," and the fantastical sci-fi serial killer thriller "The Cell."

"The Cell" is arguably the one that made the most lasting impression on moviegoers. In fact, the movie probably scarred many of them for life, because "The Cell" is full of unflinchingly grotesque imagery that's utterly impossible to unsee, let alone forget. Grotesqueries aside, "The Cell" is just as frequently beautiful to look at, with director Tarsem Singh conjuring awe-inspiring sights for a film that's largely set inside the mind of a vicious serial killer. D'Onofrio is the man portraying that killer. And the actor has rarely been better than in this role, one that required him to indulge in equal parts grandstanding theatrics and intensely introspective character work.

Vincent D'Onofrio has mostly kept to big screen roles over the years, but he's hardly a stranger to the television realm. In fact, one of his best-known roles came on the small screen via the long-running procedural "Law & Order: Criminal Intent." The series hit the airwaves in 2001, doing so as just the second offering in the popular "Law & Order" franchise. "Criminal Intent" was focused on the NYPD's Major Case Squad, and often delved into the mind of perpetrators in exploring the psychological why's of the crime.

D'Onofrio's eccentric Detective Bobby Goren used various mind-games to break pretty much every baddie who stepped into an interrogation room with him. The actor would appear as Bobby in 141 of the show's 195 episodes on NBC and USA before it ended its 10 season run. Though "Criminal Intent" arguably hit a few narrative speed bumps in later seasons, many "Law & Order" fans might agree its first few seasons of were among the best the franchise ever produced. Likewise, Vincent D'Onofrio's Bobby is seen by many as one of the franchise's strongest characters. 

These days, it's getting hard to find an actor who hasn't appeared in a Marvel project. And yes, Vincent D'Onofrio is among the dozens of high-profile performers who've served a stint in the MCU, having done so as one of the biggest bads Marvel Comics ever conjured. That big Marvel bad was the fearsome Wilson Fisk, who's better known to most as Kingpin. D'Onofrio portrayed Wilson Fisk in 27-episodes of Netflix's lauded Marvel series "Daredevil," opposite Charlie Cox as Matt Murdoch — a blind man with heightened senses, a do-gooding attorney by day, and a vigilante by night. 

"Daredevil" aired three seasons on Netflix before the streamer pulled the plug, with many hailing it as the best of their Marvel offerings (which included "Jessica Jones," "Luke Cage," "Iron Fist," "The Punisher," and "The Defenders"). Likewise, many believe D'Onofrio's take on Fisk made him the best of those series' villains, with the actor imbuing the character with a fiery intellect, a fractured psyche, and a brute-force physicality rarely glimpsed in any Marvel project.