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Welcome to the website for the John Sayles Stock Company. This site was established to celebrate America’s premier independent filmmaker as well as the sizable group of actors who make his films so unique and memorable. “Every movie, maybe a third or half of the actors I’ve worked with before,” Sayles once said. “It helps me, especially with a big cast. They know how I work, and I know how they work, so a few question marks get erased.” John Sayles, like every prominent film director, has his own Stock Company – that is, an unofficial collection of actors who frequently appear in films by a certain director. (John Ford’s Stock Company, for example, included John Wayne, Ward Bond, Harry Carey, and Victor McLaglen, while Spike Lee’s features Denzel Washington, Ossie Davis, John Turturro, and Roger Smith.) Unlike many directors, though, the members of Sayles’ Stock Company don’t necessarily play the same kind of role in every film. “David Strathairn has been in about six of my movies, and maybe more, but he’s always played very different characters,” Sayles once said. “The same thing with Chris Cooper. So rather than getting a stock company of actors who come and do the same thing – kind of like in the Preston Sturges thing where William Demarest is always going to play the same guy – I’m a little more interested in getting actors who really have some range. So Joe Morton can go from Brother from Another Planet to being the colonel he played in Lone Star; they're very different guys, but he's just a good actor.” By the broadest definition, the John Sayles Stock Company has 55 members. (That’s the number of actors who have appeared in two or more Sayles films.) There are 23 actors who’ve appeared in at least three Sayles films, 10 who have appeared in at least four, and three (David Strathairn, Maggie Renzi, and Sayles himself) who have appeared in seven or more. Each of these fine actors is profiled on this website. Using the links at right, you can browse through biographies and photos of the actors who have helped Sayles make some of the most thoughtful and provocative films of the last two decades.
This site is provided free of charge for your enjoyment, but it does cost time and money to maintain. If you've enjoyed your visit and found the information useful, we invite you to help defray those costs by making a donation – as large or small as you wish – by clicking the button below. Gracias!
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The John Sayles Stock Company is an independent, not-for-profit website. This site is not affiliated with John Sayles or with any of the actors featured on the site. Please do not write us asking how to contact John Sayles or any of the actors herein; such inquiries will be ignored.
This website is provided free of charge as a public service for research and education. The written material on this site may be reproduced or published anywhere as long as proper credit is given to this site. However, the photographs herein are the property of their individual copyright holders. The John Sayles Stock Company website does not control the copyright for these photos, so please don't write us asking if you can use them.