There are some people where it’s a little hard to remember they played recurring characters. They’ve done so many movies and TV shows that the idea they’ve done nearly 130 episodes of any one show is a little surprising—when did they have the time? And then there’s nearly thirty episodes of a second show and nearly sixty of a third. In a career where they did nearly 120 different TV shows and more than forty movies. That is a busy actor, but he’s an actor who most people wouldn’t be able to name on a bet and might not recognize at all.
Indeed, the only reason his Wikipedia article doesn’t qualify as a stub is that it includes a sampling of his roles. Troy Evans is not a man about whom a lot is written on IMDb, either. He’s a man who’s been doing steady work in the background since the early ’80s, going back to a performance on Lou Grant. Interestingly, he played a character named Tom Pepper; he would later play Sergeant Bob Pepper on China Beach—a show I haven’t watched in a long time but which I have no doubt played a lot with that name.
For a lot of us, he first came to our attention in his only episode of Twin Peaks. As principal George Wolchezk, he announced the death of Laura Palmer to Twin Peaks High School. It is a small, arguably unimportant, deeply moving role. It’s clear that he, too, knew and cared about Laura. Or knew one face of her, of course. As it happens, I generally think that the mask Laura presented was a real part of her personality and just not all of it, and even if it wasn’t, he is unaware in this moment that it’s more than a mask and is genuinely mourning the person he thought he knew.
He’s played a lot of crabby, surly men, often with a law enforcement or military background. Let’s face it; he has a type, both physically and psychologically. He projects a certain aura. Sure, I agree that Mr. Wolchezk is shown in a moment of raw emotion, but it’s hard to picture him being like that most of the time. What I imagine is that he spends most of his time being friendly but firm. The kind of person you don’t want to cross unless you’re, say, Bobby Briggs.
He’s enormously funny in The Frighteners. His part in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was supposed to be a non-speaking role, but Evans was actually in pain and ad-libbed a cranky rant. It was deemed funny enough to keep in the movie. He’s another one of those actors who has appeared in something of your preferred genre no matter what your preferred genre is. Just because you don’t recognize him doesn’t mean you’ve never seen him.
