Callum Keith Rennie (born 14 September 1960) is a British and Canadian actor. His breakthrough role was as punk rocker Billy Tallent in the music mockumentary Hard Core Logo (1996), followed by a starring role as Det. Stanley Raymond Kowalski on the third and fourth seasons of the television series Due South (1997–99). He then won a Genie Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in the Don McKellar film Last Night (1998).
Rennie's television roles include Leoben Conoy / Number 2 on Battlestar Galactica (2003–09), Lew Ashby on Californication (2008–13), Rick Felder on The Killing (2011–12), Gary Connell on The Man in the High Castle (2016), Karl Malus on Jessica Jones (2018), and Commander Rayner on Star Trek: Discovery (2024). He won a Gemini Award for Best Actor in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role for his portrayal of Detective Ben Sullivan on Shattered, and a second Genie Award for the film Normal (2007). He has also won four Leo Awards.
Early life Rennie was born in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear and at age four his family immigrated to Canada. Rennie was brought up in middle-class Edmonton, Alberta, as the second of three boys. He graduated from Strathcona High School, where he met and befriended Bruce McCulloch from the Kids in the Hall. He dropped out of college and took up all sorts of odd jobs, leaving Edmonton for brief stays in Vancouver and Toronto before eventually settling in Vancouver.
Career
Early work Working at the campus radio of University of Alberta led Rennie to discover acting at age 25. He started his career on stage, performing at the A.B.O.P. Theatre in Edmonton in Amerika, a play adapted from Franz Kafka's novel and followed with the critically acclaimed American Buffalo during the Edmonton International Fringe Festival. After attending Bruhanski Theatre Studio in Vancouver, he had his first professional theatrical performance in 1989 in Sally Clark's Lost Souls and Missing Persons, a Touchstone Theatre production. This earned him an invitation to work at the Shaw Festival where he appeared in Man and Superman and in Pinero's Trelawny of the Wells (1990).
1993–2001
Rennie's first appearance on screen was in the indie Canadian film Purple Toast, filmed in 1990 and released in 1993. Also in 1993, he began to take small roles in television (Highlander, Forever Knight, and the revamped version of The Outer Limits). Rennie's profile within the Canadian industry was heightened during this period by leading roles in the television films Paris or Somewhere (1994) and For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down (1996). Due to several disagreements during the production of the latter film, Rennie vowed never to work for the CBC again, though he has remained a staunch supporter of the Canadian industry as a whole. After his first appearance on The X-Files, he was offered the role of Alex Krycek but turned it down because he did not want to commit to a television series at that time.
His career gained momentum quickly and larger roles in Canadian films followed (the independent short film Frank's Cock by Mike Hoolboom, and Mina Shum's Double Happiness as Sandra Oh's love interest, for which he was nominated for a Genie Award as best supporting actor). He also had more important roles on television series, as in a two-parter for La Femme Nikita.
His most prominent early roles were as guitar player Billy Tallent in Bruce McDonald's Hard Core Logo (1996) and as detective Stanley Raymond Kowalski in the third and fourth seasons of CTV series Due South, which aired in over 150 countries. The Canadian band Billy Talent is named after his Hard Core Logo character. As for his part in Due South, it has been said that his "disaffected intensity and hungover good looks" added an edge to the series.
Rennie was then seen in the recurrent roles of the convenience store guru Newbie on Don McKellar's cult television series Twitch City and of detective Bobby Marlowe on the award-winning series Da Vinci's Inquest.
His interpretation of sex marathoner Craig Zwiller in Don McKellar's Last Night earned him his first Genie Award (1999). After a role in David Cronenberg's eXistenZ (1999), his first international success on the big screen was his appearance as the thug Dodd in Christopher Nolan's Memento (2000). The same year, he impersonated a chilling yet seductive drifter in Suspicious River.
2002–present
With the father characters of Falling Angels (2003) and Flower and Garnet (2002), Rennie expanded to playing more mature roles, rather than young, self-destructive rebels. He also impersonated self-controlled Inspector Wood in the period drama Torso: The Evelyn Dick Story (2002) and appeared as the quiet dyslexic painter of Wilby Wonderful (2004).
He has played guest roles in episodes of various Canadian or US television series like Mutant X, The Dead Zone, Smallville, Supernatural, The L Word, Bionic Woman and more recently Harper's Island. During the same time, he has interpreted contrasting characters in movies such as The Butterfly Effect, H2O: the Last Prime Minister, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Blade: Trinity (2004), Lucid (2005), Unnatural & Accidental (2006), The Invisible, Tin Man, Normal, Silk (2007), and The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008).
His recurring role as the Cylon Leoben Conoy in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica (2003–09) and his portrayal of the record producer Lew Ashby throughout the second season of Californication (2008) have earned him a new wide and international recognition.
In 2009–10, Rennie played a character named Jeff Slingerland aka Dr. Maurice Raynaud on the ABC series FlashForward. Before the series was cancelled, David Goyer, who had previously directed him in Blade and The Invisible, mentioned he would be back and was slated to appear in the second season. He also appeared as Russian mobster Vladimir Laitanan in the eighth season of 24.
In Fall 2010, he played the lead role of Detective Brian Sullivan on Shattered, a series about a detective who suffers from multiple personality disorder. It aired in Canada on Global TV, followed by airings in other countries, though not the United States. Rennie received critical acclaim for his performance, and in 2011 won the Gemini and Leo awards for the role. Shattered was not renewed for a second season.
His 2010 appearances on the big screen included the Canadian film Gunless, a Western comedy starring Paul Gross, as a bounty hunter on the trail of Gross' Montana Kid. He also reprised his role as Billy Tallent for a short appearance in Trigger. Trigger is part of several films set in the same universe as Hard Core Logo, directed again by Bruce McDonald; this one, starring Molly Parker and Tracy Wright, written by Daniel MacIvor, is about the reunion of two women who used to be in an alternative rock band together. Rennie also served as one of Trigger's executive producers. Another film, Faith, Fraud & Minimum Wage, based on Canadian playwright Josh MacDonald's play Halo, has been completed and is waiting for release.
Rennie made a number of television appearances in 2011, including a supporting role on The Killing as Rick Felder, Detective Sarah Linden's fiancé. He also guest starred on Alphas, CSI: Miami and Rookie Blue.
Rennie was also cast as a series regular on the NBC series The Firm. He plays Ray McDeere, the brother of the principal character, Mitch McDeere, played by Josh Lucas. It began airing as a midseason replacement for the 2011–12 season.
In 2015, Rennie was cast as a main character for the second season of Amazon's The Man in the High Castle. He joined the cast in the role of Gary Connell, leader of the West Coast Resistance movement.
Personal life Rennie likes painting and admires abstract expressionist artists such as Basquiat, Motherwell and Pollock (the Champion spark-plug logo tattoo on his right arm is an homage to Stuart Davis). He was an enthusiastic mountain climber in his youth and is an avid golfer.
Filmography Film +List of films and roles Year Title Role Notes 1993 Purple Toast Tom Struck 1994 Valentine's Day Astronaut Still Boyfriend Short film Frank's Cock The Narrator Double Happiness Mark Timecop The Stranger The Raffle Floor Director 1995 Curtis's Charm Jim 1996 Unforgettable Drug Dealer Hard Core Logo Billy Tallent / William Boisy Letters from Home Short film 1997 Masterminds Ollie Excess Baggage Motel Manager Men with Guns Mamet 1998 Last Night Craig Zwiller 1999 eXistenZ Hugo Carlaw The Life Before This Martin MacLean 2000 The Highwayman Telemarketer Uncredited The Last Stop Jake Memento Dodd Suspicious River Gary Jensen 2001 Picture Claire Laramie 2002 Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice Palmberg Direct to video Now & Forever Carl Mackie Flower & Garnet Ed 2003 Falling Angels Jim Field Paycheck Jude, Guard 2004 The Butterfly Effect Jason Treborn Wilby Wonderful "Duck" MacDonald Blade: Trinity Asher Talos 2005 Lucid Victor Whole New Thing Denny Shooting Gallery Michael Mortenson Direct-to-video 2006 Snow Cake John Neil Unnatural & Accidental Norman 2007 Code Name: The Cleaner Shaw Shattered Detective McGill Also known as Butterfly on the Wheel The Invisible Brian Larson Normal Walt Silk Schuyler 2008 Sleepwalking Will The X-Files: I Want to Believe Janke Dacyshyn, 2nd Abductor 2009 Case 39 Edward Sullivan 2010 Faith, Fraud & Minimum Wage Donald McCullen Gunless Ben Cutler Trigger Billy 2013 Hell in a Handbag Silver The Young and Prodigious T. S. Spivet Father 2014 October Gale James Matthews Sitting on the Edge of Marlene Freddy "Fast Freddy" 2015 Fifty Shades of Grey Ray Steele Into the Forest Robert Born to Be Blue Dick Bock 2016 Warcraft Moroes 2017 Little Pink House Goon: Last of the Enforcers Hyrum Cain Mobile Homes Robert Jigsaw Detective Halloran2018 Fifty Shades FreedRay
Television