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Leland Orser seems, by all available evidence, to be a genial, forthright and not unattractive chap. He's currently married to the lovely Jeanne Tripplehorn. They make for a picturesque pair.

Shave his head, however, and strap a pair of wire-framed glasses on him, and spray his forehead with a generous spritz of flop sweat, and you've got yourself one convincingly jittery dweeb. Hand him a knife and you've got a nicely agitated psycho. Orser, for some reason (and we understand that "talent" plays a role here) is a veritable virtuoso of skittishness. If knocking knees were the cello, he'd be Yo-Yo Ma.

You may have heard those knees a-knockin' during such classic Orser performances as "Purvis," an ill-fated and extremely nervous gent in Alien: Resurrection. Or perhaps you recall him as "Crazed Man in Massage Parlour" in Se7en. Orser played the sorry dude who was forced, by a psycho, to strap on a leather appendage with a knife on it and make messy work of an unfortunate prostitute, in one of the movie's sicker twists. His subsequent breakdown (and who wouldn't be a bit jumpy after such an ordeal?) could be the creepiest scene in the film.

Orser also acted all sweaty and nervous and skittish as "Charles" in Very Bad Things, a Very Bad movie about a bunch of jackasses who, as it happens, end up impaling an innocent working girl of their own. This double hooker homicide on his résumé is a coincidence, no doubt. Still, given his onscreen track record, we'd bet Orser would have some problems hooking up with any real-life call girls, were he so inclined.

It won't help his case that Orser can play a pretty mean psycho himself. There's a certain movie with a certain famous black actor and a certain puffy-lipped ingenue that features Orser in said capacity, but we won't go into more detail in case you've yet to see the film in question. Though if you haven't seen it, don't rush out -- it stinks. Orser, though, appears in all his sweaty, psychotic glory. We can only assume that his role in the forthcoming Daredevil, in which he plays "Wesley," will also involve some combination of sweating, stammering, darting his eyes about, and/or jumping at loud sounds.

When he's not busy acting all jumpy and freaked out, Orser fills his time with the usual HITG! journeyman work: a Lieutenant in Saving Private Ryan here, a Major in Pearl Harbor there. He makes a pretty good army guy, assuming there's call for a nerdy army guy who can't stand the sound of explosions, which every movie army seems to need at least one of.

We often assume that movie stars have it easy, vis-à-vis bagging the babes, since they get to be projected onscreen in a warm wash of glamour and sauve assurance. Orser, however, is the reverse of that phenomenon. Can you imagine how hard it must have been for him to convince Jeanne Tripplehorn that he isn't really a skittish, sweaty, freaked-out, possibly psycho nerd? Unless, of course, she's in to that sort of thing. We don't judge.