Gary Cole(I)

Attended Illinois State University where he was among fellow actors Laurie Metcalf and John Malkovich.

(On landing To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)) [William] Petersen is an old friend of mine from a long time ago. We started a theater company in Chicago, and he's the one that got me on that. I was out here in Los Angeles. Billy was renting a big house while he was doing the movie, and there were other Chicago actors out here migrating, mooching off of him while we were out in L.A. auditioning for stuff. And there were some roles in it, and he mentioned me to William Friedkin, so I just got this role as one of a bunch of bad guys that Billy hunted down. (While filming it) I never ran so much in a day in my life. It was somewhere out in a railyard outside of downtown near a bridge, like a train trestle. And it was running there, it was running across the bridge, and it was running through the industrial park, and finally Billy tackles me and roughs me up. But we ran all day long.