Actor from ‘Heat’, ‘Call of Duty’ makes home in Stevens Point

By Brandi Makuski

During his 30+ years in Hollywood, Kevin Gage has played a SEAL instructor, a psychopathic bank robber, and a cocaine dealer, but these days, the Central Wisconsin native most enjoys the role of dad.

His name may not sound familiar, but if you’ve seen the movies “Heat”, “Blow”, or “G.I. Jane”, you’ve seen his face. The self-described character actor has also made appearances in television shows like “Sons of Anarchy”, “Nash Bridges”, and “Firefly”.

He also plays Gabriel Rorke in the 2013 video game “Call of Duty: Ghosts”, providing both his likeness and voice for the character.

“That’s where kids today know me from,” Gage said, chuckling between sips of coffee at Rookies Sports Pub. “You got a teenager—he probably knows the character.”

Gage recalls filming for the video game in a 20 x 20 “boxing arena” surrounded by 16 digital cameras and green screens, where, as he describes it, “100 little nerds on computers” turned his real-life motions into those of a video game character; one he may reprise in a possible sequel to the popular video game franchise.

“My 11-year-old kid could care less about the movies I’ve done, but when I got ‘Call of Duty’, he was like, ‘Dad; respect‘,” Gage said, laughing.

Gage, 59, hales from Owen-Withee, about 80 miles northwest of Stevens Point. He left home at age 14 following a rough patch with his stepfather, making his way through the foster care system until he graduated from high school and left Wisconsin for Los Angeles.

“I was tending bar out there, having a great time, when this woman in the bar asked me if I’d ever considered acting,” he said. “She slid her business card across the bar, I signed up for acting classes, and things took off from there.”

Gage got his start playing bit parts in television’s “Highway to Heaven” and “L.A. Law” before being cast as a police officer in the Tom Hanks movie “The Burbs”.

“It was one of the few times I played a good guy,” Gage recalls when asked his memories on the role. “It was this little part at the end of the movie but Carrie Fischer was very big then, and Bruce Dern…man, that guy’s just strange.”

Gage continued playing bit parts until he was offered an audition for a movie starring Al Pacino and Robert Robert De Niro. The 1995 film, “Heat”, was about a bank heist—but the plot didn’t much matter to Gage.

“That’s all I needed to hear; a chance to work with Pacino and Bob (De Niro)—I mean, c’mon—it doesn’t really get much better than that,” he said, adding he is still addressed in some circles by “Waingro”, the name of his psychotic bank-robbing character.

“Hollywood is kind of like Vegas; you lose, lose, lose…but every now and then you hit the jackpot,” Gage said. “I think that’s what ‘Heat’ was for me, that was my jackpot. That was my moment, my big hit.”

The film’s success meant more work for Gage. In 1997 he landed the role of Instructor Pyro, a Navy SEAL instructor who was second-in-command to Viggo Mortensen’s character for the movie “G.I. Jane”.

“That movie was a lot of fun. It was a lot of hard work, we had to work out and stay in shape, but it was fun,” he said. “I got to yell at people a lot.”

Gage recounts a scene during filming, one where his character and Mortensen’s are sharing a private moment after Mortensen’s character, a senior instructor, had a physical altercation with Demi Moore’s character, a SEAL recruit. As the two are talking, Mortensen produces a bottle of Jameson whiskey to share.

“Nobody knew he was going to do that; he improvised that,” Gage recalled. “And there was really whiskey in that bottle. So I played along. I thought we’d get that scene done in one, two takes. It took ten; each time we took a swig, that was one shot. So ten shots later, the scene was done. It’s a good thing that was the end of our day…but that was Viggo, he’s a prankster.”

Later, he’d go on to play opposite Johnny Depp in 2001’s “Blow”, in which his character, a cocaine-dealer-turned-police-informant, betrays Depp’s character during a federal drug sting operation.

Gage’s gruff exterior and booming, gravelly voice make it easy for him to play bad guys—“I like playing bad guys,” he said—and in 2002, he played thief Stitch Hessian in the futurist sci-fi western television show “Firefly”.

The short-lived series has surged in popularity since going off the air, and Gage said he’s signed several hundred autographs for fans of the show just in the past two years.

“I guess I didn’t realize ‘Firefly’ was still so popular, but I don’t remember a lot about that show,” he said, save one experience: for his role, Gage had to wear a partial prosthetic to simulate his character’s facial deformity.

“The special effects guy put it on my face, all that plastic and latex, and when we’re ready to shoot I thought, ‘Oh, God, I forgot to put an earplug in’,” he said. “I had to blow a shotgun in the air right next to my ear. I thought it would be quarter-loads in my gun, so I figured I’d be okay. But it was a full load. I’ve probably lost 30, 40 percent of my hearing in that ear from that one incident.”

Since then, Gage has had a son and become a widower—events which changed his priorities drastically.

“Right now, my job in life is to be a dad,” he said. “One of the advantages to being an older parent is, I’ve done just about everything I wanted to do in life, and I’m stable. I just love being a dad. I know you’ll never get those years back so I want those years with him, to be close to him and be a hands-on dad 24/7.”

Gage chose to relocate to Stevens Point about six months ago. He has family in the city—his nephew is a co-owner of Zest Bakery—he enjoys being close to his mother (“and her cooking,” he said), and to pass the days, he tends bar at Rookies Sports Pub.

“I found his post for a bartender in the marketplace on Facebook,” Gage said of Rookies owner Randy Woyak. “I sent him a message, and like three hours later I had a job.”

Woyak said Gage’s quasi-celebrity status definitely piqued his interest, but he said he was surprised that Gage was down-to-earth and easy to talk with.

“That’s important for a bartender. You don’t want to hire a jerk, and he’s also got some pretty good stories about Hollywood,” Woyak said. “And we like to tease him a little, people call him ‘Hollywood’, but he’s not obnoxious and he doesn’t have any pretense. I liked that.”

Gage said he loves being back home so he can hunt and fish.

“I love the seasons, believe it or not, and I love the people,” he said. “I love that my boy can ride his bike to school here. He wouldn’t be able to do that in L.A.”

Gage continues to work small roles as interesting projects come his way, and in the past decade has racked up more than two dozen acting credits, having worked with Kris Kristofferson, Robert Englund, Ray Wise, and Tom Sizemore.

But for him, it’s always been just a job.

“I don’t hang out with movie stars, I’ve never been into the whole Hollywood thing,” he said. “I love Wisconsin, and I don’t know that I’d go back to L.A.”

There is, however, one person in the movie business who Gage wouldn’t think of turning down.

“[Steven] Spielberg,” Gage said instantly, laughing. “No doubt. That would just about seal things for me in Hollywood.”