The legendary Scanners. However, Cronenberg has also been known to step out from behind the camera and play roles in TV and movies. He often shows up as a minor background character in his own movies, but has also played a few larger roles in movies and television shows made by other directors.
Cronenberg clearly has a love of the gross, the weird, and the psychologically affecting, as evidenced by his own filmography, so he often shows up in movies with similar subject matter. That being said, he clearly has a sense of humor, not taking himself too seriously, and agreed to appear in smaller films or bit parts in more comedic movies, especially those made by other Canadian horror directors. Most notably, he appears as a postal supervisor in John Landis’ The Stupids.
While Cronenberg’s most common role is a simple background character, he does seem to have a penchant for playing doctors, especially villainous doctors. He appears as a gynecologist in The Fly, an obstetrician in Nightbreed and Dr. Wimmer in Jason X.
Cronenberg’s first horror acting role came in his own film, Shivers, in 1975 during which he appears as an infected member of the crowd. He then appeared as Max Renn in his 1983 movie Videodrome during the helmet scenes. In his next two movies, The Fly and Dead Ringers, Cronenberg played small roles as a gynecologist and obstetrician, respectively.
In 1990, Cronenberg appeared for the first time in a horror film that was not his own, and in a considerably larger role than he ever had before. Clive Barker’s Nightbreed cast David Cronenberg as Dr. Philip K. Decker, a psychiatrist who moonlights as the sadistic serial killer, Button Face, and serves as the main villain of the movie.
Later, in 1995, Cronenberg appeared as the local crime boss in Canadian vampire comedy, Blood and Donuts, and then had a cameo in the 1999 American-Canadian horror film, Resurrection, as a priest. 2001 brought one of David Cronenberg’s most memorable roles for many horror fans and also his most modern appearance in a horror movie, Dr. Wimmer in Jason X.
While Cronenberg hasn’t had many big roles as an actor, his biggest roles are all in horror, which makes sense as Cronenberg has built his reputation as a director in the horror genre, specifically. However, in addition to his horror roles, Cronenberg has also appeared in a couple John Landis comedies, as well as in the J. J. Abrams action thriller series, Alias, along with the Canadian miniseries, Alias Grace.
David Cronenberg even has a cameo as Dr. Cronenbird in the Nickelodeon animated series Pig Goat Banana Cricket, and plays a mysterious recurring character, Kovich, on the new Star Trek: Discovery series, which he will reprise in season 4. However, it’s clear that despite David Cronenberg’s appearances across different types of media, horror is his home, giving him his directorial reputation as well as his biggest acting roles to date.
