It’s likely that a lot of fans forget that Theo Rossi has had a long and fairly successful career before his turn as Juice on Sons of Anarchy, and he’s been around since then as well. In fact, he had a fairly important role on the MCU’s Luke Cage on Netflix until it was canceled as Hernan “Shades” Alvarez. As a villain, he’s kind of hard to believe sometimes, but that could be since he spent a good amount of time building up the character of Juice on SOA. The character was kind of a goofball for the first couple of seasons even though he was reliable, and was often in a spot of trouble since he couldn’t always control his impulses and went on to do a few stupid things here and there. But Juice didn’t get a happy ending by the time the show was entering its final episodes since he’d been sent to prison and was essentially being used to sow up matters for the club and pay a kind of debt to a character that was played by rockstar Marilyn Manson. But the time his role was up a lot of fans might have been surprised that he lasted as long as he did, but the way Juice went out was kind of brutal since he was stabbed to death and bled out in the prison cafeteria, no longer a real part of the club and definitely reviled.
Theo is the kind of actor that’s quick with a smile and looks like he could be your best friend, even though he’s made it clear that on-screen he can also be one of the most dangerous men around since that good-natured smile can lower a person’s defenses pretty quickly. It does sound fair to say that everything he’s done after SOA has been noticeable but not exactly blockbuster material, but there’s always the idea that he could make his way into a big project and be more than a little noticeable. As an actor, he’s one of the many individuals that are versatile enough to play more than one role, but he’s also someone that people remember from various other roles and might have trouble accepting him in whatever new role he shows up in. That feels a bit dismissive but it’s not entirely false since he has made a few impressions with his bigger roles and it’s very likely that seeing him as anyone else is going to be hard until he comes up with something that can really allow people to see past what he’s already done.
There are plenty of actors in Hollywood that can shine in one or two roles and make a career out of this, but Theo is one of those guys that a person simply knows can do more if he really tries. It’s going to take a pretty big effort though to make this happen since Theo is a good actor, as that much has been proven, but he’s also the kind of guy that can get locked into a role and not find his way out for a while. It’s so much that he’s been typecast, but it is to the point that he hasn’t done much worthy of note, meaning nothing that would make the news or make people stand up and recognize him in another movie or show. It is possible that he can eventually become someone that people need to watch simply because he’s that great, but it does sound likely that until this happens he’s going to be someone we remember on sight, even if we don’t happen to remember his name. A lot of actors have already been labeled as such, the people that you can easily recognize but have to search around for their names since you know where you’ve seen them but it’s difficult to remember their full name. It doesn’t feel as though Theo has hit that point yet, but he could very easily unless he comes out with something spectacular in the next few years.
That’s kind of how the business goes though. An actor can be busy and have plenty to do when it comes to their career, but unless they find a way for people to remember their name and start appearing in bigger and bigger projects from one year to the next it’s very likely that people are going to remember their face, but not their name. A lot of folks might remember Rossi for a long time to come, and that’s great, but it’d be even better to see him in a major motion picture where he’s a little more prominent than he’s been in a while. If nothing else it would remind people that he is still very talented and worth paying attention to.
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