Elias Koteas
 

Hello everyone. I rewatched the original trilogy this weekend, and one big thing that stood out to me was how awesome Elias Koteas was in his role. To me he is the perfect Casey Jones and he is my personal favorite iteration of the character.

I wanted to start a discussion thread, and I have some questions that some of you may know the answers to.

Does anyone know if Elias looks back on his time with the turtles fondly? I'm curious if he enjoyed his time working on these films and being in such a unique place in pop culture history, or if it was more like "just another movie" for him.

Does anyone know why he was omitted from the second film? Keno is fine, but I would have like to have seen more of Elias. I wonder of there was a scheduling conflict, or if he just wasn't written into the movie in the first place. Or, if the reason both he and Judith weren't in the second one had to do with money.

I'm also curious if he's ever spoke about how he felt about the 3rd movie. Personally I think his scenes in that film provide some pretty great comic relief, but I'd still rather see him kicking ass with the turtles.

If anyone has any other fun tidbits about Elias regarding his role in the TMNT films, please post them here!

I did find this interview which sheds some light on how he feels about that time:

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...750708692.html

Koteas was thought to be the next DeNiro at the time. The production was pretty lucky to snag him. Amazing acting talent. Considering the low budget, Barron and the casting director really did a great job casting the film.

Casey was written into the first draft script of SOTO, but didn't survive heavy revisions.

If you look at his rotten and idmb page, he's gotten constant work as an actor but nothing big, and he mainly played minor support roles in movies.

He does look like young deniro in his early years and his acting was based on deniro as well, im sure he knew that and director commentary on turtles has info about him being like deniro and its basically why they casted him, he was supposed to be vigilante like deniro in taxi driver.

Such a fantastic Casey Jones. Sure, he didn't have a ton of range to show off within that role, but he captured the wrecklessness and charm that you want out of Casey.

The first movie's characters feel so rich, despite going on a pretty basic emotional journey.

I'd like to see an Old Man Casey and Raph movie with him back in the role...

he was actually great and super entertaining. too bad he never made it big.

"Hey, this is an actor that looks and acts exactly like such-and-such actor!" <--- has never been said about any A-list actor, ever.

That I'm aware of, anyway.

That would be awesome! I wonder if he'd be interested. It seems he's got a steady gig as a co-star on Chicago PD. I've never watched that, I wonder if it's any good.

Ever since the third film Turtles film, I always pictured Elias Koteas being casted alongside Bruce Willis in one of the Die Hard movies. I just thought he had great range and if McClain ever needed a bad guy to fight or a partner to go on patrol with, Elias always seemed like the kind of actor who could pull off either role

True! Of course, Koteas has never been an A-lister, and that stuff absolutely, 110% happens to non-A-listers.

I'm pretty sure I have another interview I'll have to dig up where Barron mentions the DeNiro/Koteas/Casey/Taxi Driver similarities, and how it impacted the casting.

https://i.imgur.com/8ONmDi0.jpg

Man, reading that it's sad Elias never became famous. All he ever did was minor support roles and be in movies most people never heard of.

Fame and a successful acting career aren't mutually exclusive. Koteas has had 88 acting credits since starting in 1980, including work with Scorsese and Fincher--pretty fruitful career!

Yeah, but a lot of his stuff are extremely minor or one scene roles. For example he's in the movie Gattaca from 1997, but he's literally only in the movie for less than 7 minutes in a flashback when the protagonist was a kid. He may be in a lot of movies but they're minor roles.

I have not seen Elias Koteas in anything except for his two films as Casey Jones. I looked him up a few years ago to see whatever happened to him and was shocked to see he had steady work since 1988. His roles are consistent, but never as any major role let alone major film. I also don't think I would recognize him without long hair and these days he is nearly bald. I guess he is content in being an unknown so long as work is consistent. Some actors are like that. They want to be able to have regular acting roles and be able to immerse themselves in the art of it. Another example of this is Amy Jo Johnson of Power Rangers fame. Could have been more, but chose not to.

The Thin Red Line in incredible-- great place to start.

It was cool seeing him pop up in The Sopranos (as a wise guy turned substance abuse counselor). Too bad he didn't have more than one small appearance, though.

I saw Shuter Island when it came out, but could not identify him. I guess he only had the long hair briefly yet is how he is most recognized. Could that have hurt his recognizeability to people in films? Having seen the film, it was a couple of years later whwn I looked through his filmography, I went, "wait, that balding guard was Casey Jones?!".

I am not familar with The Thin Red Line. I will watch the trailer on Youtube as soon as post this and of it is interesting enough to put in the Netflix queue.

Arguably one of the best war films. Directed by Terrence Malick, who should be regarded as a damn national treasure.

I highly recommend it.

He has appeared in over 100 episodes of Chicago PD which is a fairly popular television show, so I am glad he found steady work like that in a co-starring role.