Let's use this new Hunters trailer to appreciate Dylan Baker, one of our best character actors
Amazon has shared a new trailer for Hunters—the juggernaut’s profane Nazi-busting thriller that counts Jordan Peele among its executive producers—that will air during this Sunday’s Super Bowl. That’s great, and we’re very excited for Hunters, but, if we’re being honest, we’re really here to see Dylan Baker check off another box on his “deplorable characters” bingo card.
Baker’s Biff Simpson looks to be the primary antagonist of Hunters, playing an all-American porch rocker and bureaucrat who’s living a double life as a fuckin’ Nazi. It’s a nasty role, but most certainly not his first. Since first lighting up the screen in 1987's Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Baker’s subverted the suburban air emanating from his long, unassuming face to play characters who aren’t villains so much as variations of pure evil. In 1998's Happiness, for example, he found nuance in his portrayal of a father and therapist who turns out to be a predatory pedophile. Cult horror classic Trick ‘r Treat finds him as a school principal moonlighting as a sociopathic child killer. Hell, the guy played J. Edgar Hoover. But it’s not just the dorky dad vibes that make Baker so uniquely suited to playing stealth devils: Credit his eyes, which can transform from round and inviting to cold and piercing in a single blink.
Just watch him in this below trailer.
Baker’s Biff will square off against a team of Nazi hunters led by Al Pacino, Jerrika Hinton, Carol Kane, and Josh Radnor in the new series. It debuts on Amazon on February 21.