Joe Chrest
☼ Born on 26 December 1963, in St. Albans, West Virginia, USA
Biography
After serving in the United States Air Force where he was recognized for Cold War service and for expert marksmanship, Chrest earned a BFA Degree in Directing from Marshall University (West Virginia) and a MFA Degree from Louisiana State University.
A veteran of over 100 screen roles, and over 60 plays and musicals, Chrest first appeared on the big screen as the malevolent bellhop, Ben, in Steven Soderbergh's King of the Hill (1993). He followed that with the widely acclaimed performance as Mr. Rodman in Soderbergh's "The Underneath". Nearly unrecognizable in many of his roles, Joe continues the chameleon-like range of these early performances to the widely different characters of recent films, from the steely quiet sharpshooter, Mitchell, in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015) to Jonah Hill's nerdy dad, David Schmidt, in 22 Jump Street (2014) to the despicable Southern aristocrat, James Eakins, in Free State of Jones (2016).
Chrest performed onstage at, among other venues, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, working with Tony Award-winning directors, Gordon Davidson and Jerry Zaks, and London Theatre Award winner and Olivier Award nominee, Barry Kyle. He was a founding member of the regional theatre, Swine Palace, with RSC Director Emeritus Barry Kyle, and is the Founding Artistic Director of Ignition Film Repertory Company -- a company dedicated to nurturing and producing original works for the screen.
Married to choreographer Christi
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ne Chrest, the couple has two children, Nicolas and Samantha.
In the role of actor
Lisa Frankenstein (12/02/2024)
A teenage outcast falls for a reanimated corpse in Lisa Frankenstein. Set in 1989, Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) is a shy teenager still reeling from her mother’s murder. Lisa’s father Dale (Joe Chrest) has since remarried the incredibly cruel nurse Janet (Carla Gugino), though her daughter Taffy (Liza Soberano) tries to get Lisa to come […]