C. Thomas Howell

The boy who rode horses before acting

Christopher Thomas Howell did not come to Hollywood sets seeking fame or artistic validation. His father was a respected stunt coordinator, and little Tommy was already competing in professional rodeos before he turned twelve. In 1982 he landed a supporting role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, but his real entry into film history came a year later on a sweltering shoot in Oklahoma.

Francis Ford Coppola chose him to star in The Outsiders.

That 1983 film worked as a talent incubator where Howell was the emotional center of the story. He shared scenes with young Tom Cruise and Patrick Swayze while playing Ponyboy Curtis. He was seventeen and had a wistful gaze that fit the sensibility of the era perfectly. But teen stardom in the film industry tends to expire quickly if it is not managed with a cool head.

And the pressure of early success began to take its toll.

In 1984 he took part in Red Dawn, playing a young guerrilla fighter in a story about a Soviet invasion of the United States. The film did well at the box office and kept him at the forefront of the decade's young ensemble casts. Two years later came what may be his most memorable work for fans of B-movie psychological thrillers.

From the Rodeo Trail to Major Studio Obscurity

The Hitcher was released in 1986. In this production Howell played Jim Halsey, a driver terrorized by a psychopath played by Rutger Hauer. The film's power relied entirely on the actor's physical vulnerability against the constant threat of the highway. The shoot was tough, and it grossed only 5.9 million dollars in its initial release in U.S. theaters.

That same 1986 he made a decision that would damage his professional reputation for the following decades. He starred in Soul Man, a comedy in which his character pretends to be African American to win a scholarship to Harvard University. The use of dark makeup to portray another race drew deep backlash that over time became an insurmountable burden on his public image.

The industry stopped considering him for major productions.

By the late eighties, major studios had stopped sending scripts to his office. Howell did not give up and took refuge in the direct-to-video market and cable television. Because bills are not paid with nostalgia. He began working tirelessly on low-budget titles and sometimes returned to his stunt work to coordinate action scenes.

In 1993 he took part in the war film Gettysburg, playing Lieutenant Thomas Chamberlain. It was a large-scale project that let him prove he was still a reliable actor beyond youth roles. But major spotlights were already turning toward other, younger and less controversial stars.

The revival on the small screen

Throughout the 2000s, his name kept popping up in productions from Asylum. He worked on the 2005 version of War of the Worlds and in other quick-turnaround movies that went straight to video store shelves. The size of the project didn't matter to him as long as the role kept him working on sets in Los Angeles.

In 2009 his luck changed thanks to television.

He landed the role of George Foyet in the series Criminal Minds. His performance as a calculating, ruthless serial killer earned him the respect of specialist critics. It was a much darker register than his early work and showed an acting maturity many did not expect from a former teen idol.

In 2023 he joined the cast of the Netflix series Hechos polvo. A year later, in 2024, he played Caspar Weinberger in the biographical film Reagan under director Sean McNamara. Howell maintains a work ethic that keeps him shooting several projects per season without making much media noise.

The actor lives on a farm and spends his free time breeding horses and competing in professional rodeo. He has more than 240 acting credits according to the IMDb database.