Favorite Actor 'Crossovers'

You know what’s really annoying?
How about when you are watching one of your favorite shows and you spot an actor or recognize a voice, and you just KNOW that you have seen him or her before, but you just can’t quite remember when or where?
I don’t know about you, but that type of thing just sticks in my mind and drives me nuts for hours or sometimes even days. In my case it might just be an “age thing.”
I call such cases where an actor or actress appears on different shows “crossovers,” and in the public interest, from time to time, I will list interesting (at least to me) crossovers that I have spotted.
A similar type of crossover occurs when you are watching an old “Bonanza” or “M*A*S*H” rerun and spot someone, perhaps a child actor who is still acting as an adult today, and you know he or she looks very familiar, but can’t quite place the name, face, or voice.
So here are some recent crossovers that I have uncovered:
* To me the “Queen of Crossovers” is Sonya Walger, who is currently Dr. Olivia Benford on “FlashForward,” and Penny Widmore on “Lost.” It does perturb me a bit when the same actress appears on two shows that are on air at the same time. But I also recall Sonya as Carolyn (who desperately wanted to get pregnant) on HBO’s short-lived “Tell Me You Love Me” and Special Agent Patrice Serxner on USA Cable’s “Sleeper Cell,” where she actually was beheaded! I also enjoyed her on another HBO show, “The Mind of the Married Man,” where she played the actor Michael Binder’s wife, Donna Barnes.
* Recently on “FlashForward” I recognized a certain British accent, and I just knew that I had heard that voice before, but could not place it. Eventually I realized that the actor (Jack Davenport) who plays Lloyd Simcoe, the father of the autistic boy Dylan AND the man who is involved with Sonya Walger (of course) in her flashforward, starred as Steve Taylor on my favorite British television show “Coupling.”
* In a great scene between two apparent “villains,” Davenport appeared on “FlashForward” with Dominic Monaghan who was the sweet and lovable “Chah-lie” Pace on “Lost,” but now plays the menacing Simon.
* Another popular actress who seems to be popping up everywhere these days is Embeth Davidtz, who also is recognizable by her short cropped hair and her clipped British accent. Embeth seems perfectly cast as a somewhat uptight bitchy woman on “Californication” as Felicia Koons, a sexually-frustrated college administrator, and on “Mad Men” as Rebecca Pryce, the home sick, miserable wife of Lane Pryce, the British bloke who now runs the Sterling Cooper agency. But Embeth was at her bitchiest best playing the unhappy wife Amy on the first season of HBO’s “In Treatment.”
* Speaking of “Mad Men,” when I first saw Elisabeth Moss’s Peggy Olson character, I knew that she looked very familiar, and after a great deal of anguish (yes I take these crossover hunts very seriously), I remembered that she had played the President’s kidnapped daughter, Zoey Bartlet, on the great “West Wing” series.
* Recently I was watching one of my daughter’s favorite movies from years ago, “Fly Away Home,” (crossovers can also apply to movies) about a young girl who becomes attached to a flock of geese (actually the geese become attached to her), and I immediately realized that the girl was played by none other than Anna Paquin, better know these days as Sookie Stackhouse of “True Blood.”
* Want another “True Blood” crossover? How about Michelle Forbes, who played the demon (or should I say the Maenad?) Maryann Forrester and who also appeared on both seasons of “In Treatment” as Kate, the cheating but misunderstood wife of series star, Paul Weston.
* A really good obscure crossover is the character actor, John Billingsley, who has perfected playing such nerdy misfits as Mike Spencer on “True Blood,” and whom I loved in the short-lived hostage series “The Nine,” where he played Egan Foote, the nerd turned hero.
* Of course one of the all-time classic crossovers occurred when E Street Band guitarist Little Steven Van Zandt donned a black toupee and turned up as Silvio Dante, owner of the Bada Bing strip club on “The Sopranos.”
Anyway, I would love to hear from any readers who might suggest their favorite crossovers. But remember a quality crossover (like a quality trivia question) cannot be too obvious. Don’t send me Elizabeth Mitchell who plays Juliet Burke on “Lost” and FBI agent Erica Evans on “FlashForward” or Michael C. Hall, aka Dexter Morgan and David Fisher from “Six Feet Under.”
A much better “Dexter” crossover would be James Remar, who portrays Dexter’s dead father Harry Morgan and who was multi-millionaire Richard Wright, the a-hole who cheated and broke Samantha’s heart on “Sex and the City.”