Jonathan Banks

Most actors who break through at 62 got lucky. Banks didn't. He spent three decades doing character work in films like Beverly Hills Cop and Airplane!, and earned an Emmy nomination for Wiseguy that didn't change his trajectory. When Vince Gilligan cast him as Mike Ehrmantraut in Breaking Bad, Banks had the craft to make a hitman-fixer into one of TV's most compelling figures. Quiet. Methodical. Genuinely dangerous without raising his voice.

Better Call Saul gave Mike Ehrmantraut an origin story and gave Banks six seasons of lead work. He appeared in 61 of the show's 63 episodes, collected four Emmy nominations for the role, and never won. The show didn't either: Better Call Saul holds the record for most Emmy nominations without a single win. He's still working at 79, voicing characters in Invincible and Phineas and Ferb in 2025. His reputation is exactly where you want it to be: respected by everyone, owned by nobody.

He left Indiana University when his girlfriend got pregnant, joined a touring production of Hair as a stage manager, and made it to Los Angeles in 1974. Kevin Kline was his college classmate. His mother worked as a secretary for the CIA. He plays drums and harmonica and grows his own vegetables. The biography reads like someone who found acting by accident, then spent 50 years learning exactly what to do with it.