Career
McDermott starred as Chris in the 1989 film Twister about a man who tried to rescue his girlfriend and daughter from a tornado storm. The same year brought Neon Empire, a movie about the rise and fall of one man in Las Vegas. However, his first big break as an actor was in the hit film In the Line of Fire. Through his connection with Clint Eastwood, McDermott was able to land his first major gig in The Practice. The show expanded McDermott's stardom, and he made People's list of the "50 Most Beautiful People In The World 1998" with the magazine calling him a "a prime-time heartthrob". He got this distinction again in 2000. Despite his success on The Practice, McDermott was cut from the show. Executive producer David E. Kelley cited "economic and creative realities" as a result of pressure from ABC to reduce costs. McDermott did appear in the final two episodes of the final season.
In 2004, McDermott starred alongside Julianna Margulies four-part mini-series The Grid, playing FBI Special Agent Max Canary in an anti-terrorist unit. Returning to theater in 2006, the actor played a returned soldier suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder in the Ensler's play The Treatment. In 2007, McDermott starred in the television series Big Shots. Due to low viewership, the show was cancelled in January 2008 after 11 episodes without completing the planned 13-episode season. On October 30, 2008, TV Guide reported that McDermott was due to co-star alongside Shannen Doherty in the film Burning Palms, a satire based on Los Angeles stereotypes told through five intertwining storylines. Beginning in 2009, McDermott starred in the TNT drama Dark Blue, playing a veteran cop who heads a squad of undercover LAPD officers. The show ran for two seasons, each consisting of ten episodes. In 2011, McDermott starred on American Horror Story on FX as Ben Harmon. In 2012, he appeared in three films; The Campaign, playing Tim Wattley, a campaign manager, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, as the father of main character Charlie (Logan Lerman), and Nobody Walks, as Leroy.
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Famous quotes containing the word career:
“Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)