A dashing actor who featured in the second movies of the Die Hard and Terminator franchises was glimpsed recently in Los Angeles. At the peak of his career, he also acted with Sylvester Stallone and thus became the only actor killed onscreen by him, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He featured on shows including The X-Files and The Sopranos and did movies with such names as Demi Moore, Reese Witherspoon, and Drew Barrymore. His chiseled features and icy blue eyes made him the perfect choice to play a string of intimidating roles in the 1990s.
Over the years his star waned, and he later revealed that he 'lost a lot of momentum' in his career because he had battled a drinking problem. However, he conquered his demons and has been sober for decades, and he exuded a healthy glow when he was seen at 67 walking his dog last week.
He is none other than Robert Patrick, most famous as the steely robot villain T-1000 in the 1991 Arnold Schwarzenegger classic Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Fans might also remember him from the 1990 Bruce Willis picture Die Hard 2, in which he played O'Reilly, a henchman to the antagonist played by William Sadler.
Patrick's career included the 1997 film Cop Land, which placed him amid an all-star cast including Stallone, Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, and Harvey Keitel. In spite of his advancing years, he still exhibited youthful vigor as he stepped out for his recent dog-walk in a comfortable-looking sweatsuit.
His outfit included gleaming dark sunglasses, a beanie, and a t-shirt advertising the 2023 edition of the Rolling Loud hip hop festival. Born in Georgia in 1958, he grew up in a large family that included his younger brother Richard Patrick, who later toured as a guitarist for Nine Inch Nails and then became the frontman of his own rock band Filter.
Robert Patrick had no taste for performing as a child, refusing even to wear green tights for a third-grade production of Peter Pan, but he caught the bug in college and dropped out of Bowling Green State University. 'I became an actor because it was the only thing I was interested in. When I went deep into my soul and asked myself what it is that I wanted to do with my life, acting was the answer I got,' he told Ability magazine.
'I like playing other people. That's my calling. So I sat in on a few drama classes in college, did a few plays in school, and drove to Hollywood and basically said: "I'm an actor. Now what do I have to do? How do I get started?"'
Ultimately, he moved to Los Angeles and caught the eye of legendary cult movie producer Roger Corman, who cast him in a string of projects, including B-movies he shot in the Philippines with local filmmaker Cirio H. Santiago. 'They were low-budget exploitation-slash-art movies, in which I did my own stunts. Those films were amazing!' he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
'Cirio shot scenes very quickly, and the production cost was very cheap. But those films were so much fun to do,' he laughed: 'so go see them if you can find copies.'
Die Hard 2 proved to be his Hollywood breakthrough, with his small part as an adjutant to William Sadler's traitorous US Army Special Forces officer Colonel Stuart. One year later, James Cameron cast him in what remains his best-remembered role — T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, a fearsome robot whose formidable abilities include being able to switch from solid to liquid and back.
Although he never again reached the heights he did in Terminator 2, he continued to have a steady career working through the next decades. He acted twice with Demi Moore, in her 1996 blockbuster Striptease and her 2003 release Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, an action comedy fronted by the trio of Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu.
Among the entries in his filmography is the 2005 biopic Walk the Line, in which he played the father of Johnny Cash as portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix opposite Reese Witherspoon in an Oscar-winning turn as June Carter. Patrick returned to the part of T-1000 in a parodic capacity for two 1990s comedies as well — Wayne's World and Last Action Hero.
On the small screen, he briefly replaced David Duchovny as one of the leads of The X-Files, playing the newly created role of FBI Special Agent John Doggett, and also had a recurring part in The Sopranos as a shopkeeper in hock to the mafia. Patrick has featured on programs including Tulsa King, Peacemaker, Sons of Anarchy, Reacher, and Taylor Sheridan's Yellowstone spin-off 1923.
In an interview four years ago, he reflected on his past drinking problem and the way his substance use had hampered his career in the 1990s. 'I feel like I lost a lot of momentum after T2 for a number of reasons,' he said on Smallville actor Michael Rosenbaum's podcast Inside of You. One of the causes of the fizzling of his professional prospects was that 'I'm an alcoholic,' Patrick acknowledged on the show.
'I was a big substance abuser and alcoholic prior to T2, and I got myself clean and sober for T2 because I knew that I could not do that film with the recreational activities that I had going on,' he noted. 'Nor was I going to be able to drink. I had to go be a monk. I had to focus. I had to do the film, and when it's over, of course I go back and hit it hard in a big way, because now I've accomplished something.'
Patrick recalled with a wistful smile that he 'rewarded myself by partying for two years,' with the result that 'I don't think I prepared myself for some of the opportunities I was presented and therefore didn't get the jobs.'
However, he has since triumphed over his addiction, having revealed in 2008 that he had at that point been clean and sober for a total of 11 years. He was then president of the local chapter of the Boozefighters motorcycle club, with Jackass star Steve-O serving under him as vice president. 'Boozefighter,' the We Are Marshall actor explained at that time, 'is a name for somebody who's trying to conquer his habit of drinking.'
Patrick has been married since 1990 to Barbara Hooper, whom he was living with when he was cast in Terminator 2 and married during the production, and the couple are now proud parents to a son and a daughter.
