You've Seen Him In: The Cabin in the Woods (2012) Another long-time journeyman actor who was finally given a cursory nod by Oscar for 2007's The Visitor (as is the pattern, he did not win), Richard Jenkins has played a supporting role in at least one film nearly every year since 1985, including Hannah and Her Sisters, Flirting with Disaster, Burn After Reading, and White House Down, not to mention a recurring role as family patriarch Nathaniel Fisher in HBO's Six Feet Under. Jenkins brings a professorial mischief to the screen whenever he shows up, and his presence adds a certain winking maturity to every project he's been in. The Role He Needs: Hear me out. James K. Polk, the 11th President of the United States, was a pledged one-term president and usually seen as the last effective president of the first half of the 19th century. His primary achievement was winning the Mexican-American War and getting most of the Southwest into American hands. He also bore some resemblance to Richard Jenkins. Make a biopic of Polk's one consequential term, examining the antebellum international politics of the United States and the methods of leadership in a world before Lincoln. He'd finally win that Oscar, at least.
