With Terry O’Quinn’s penchant for playing unassuming-looking characters with strange secrets, it’s no surprise that he ended up working with “The X-Files” creator Chris Carter. In fact, he’s appeared in so many Carter projects that it may be hard to keep track of them all. The most prominent of his roles is Peter Watts on the horror-tinted crime drama, “Millennium.” The character is a former FBI higher-up who acts as a liaison between Lance Henriksen’s Frank Black and the mysterious Millennium Group, and he’s easily one of the most important characters in the series.
As O’Quinn said in the A.V. Club interview, his “Millennium” role started as a short guest star stint, but he soon discovered to his delight that the production had bigger things planned for him. “I remember they called me about being a member of the Millennium group on ‘Millennium’, maybe just for one or two episodes, and then that blossomed into a three-year gig, which was great,” he said. “I mean, I think that was one of the most rewarding things to me.”
Apart from “Millennium,” O’Quinn has made multiple appearances on Carter’s flagship series, “The X-Files.” In 1995, he played Brian Tillman in the Season 2 episode, “Aubrey.” In 1998, he returned for the movie “The X-Files: Fight the Future” as Darius Michaud, a high-ranking FBI agent who plays an instrumental role in the bombing incident that drives the plot. In 2002, he was back once more for the Season 9 episode, “Trust No 1,” playing the fearsome super soldier known only as Shadow Man. If all of that wasn’t enough, he also played General Omar Santiago on Carter’s short-lived virtual reality drama, “Harsh Realm.”
