David Anthony Higgins

The Art of Being the Supporting Player Everyone Knows

David Anthony Higgins has that face viewers recognize long before they remember the name. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1961, his career makes sense only through the patience of someone who knows how to wait for his moment in the frame. He is not a leading man and doesn't try to be.

He started in the live comedy circuit with his brothers and Steve Gruber. The group was called The Higgins Boys and Gruber. That experience taught him that comic timing depends as much on silence as on the spoken word. In 1989 they landed their own show on a cable channel that was just getting started.

Physical comedy was not his thing.

But his big break came in 1994 when he joined the cast of Ellen. He played Joe, the Canadian bartender with dry sarcasm that contrasted with the nervousness of Ellen DeGeneres. He stayed on until 1998 and filmed 102 episodes in total.

The Man Behind Craig Feldspar

Many viewers associate his face with a supermarket employee's shirt. In 2000, he started working on Malcolm in the Middle. His character was Craig Feldspar, an obsessive, pathetic guy who was in love with the main character's mother.

Higgins gave Craig a strange humanity. He wasn't just comic relief, because he made audiences feel a mix of pity and rejection for him. He worked on the series until its finale in 2006 and appeared in almost forty episodes.

And it worked.

That's because Higgins understands that in American television, supporting actors are the glue that holds the plot together. He doesn't need to be the center of attention for the scene to move forward. After the Fox series ended, he turned to other, less flashy formats and genres.

Scripts, Laugh Tracks and the Chuck Lorre Method

Acting in front of the camera isn't all he has done. He wrote scripts for sketch shows and produced his own material for years. In 2010 he joined the cast of Mike & Molly as Harry. It was a role designed just for him.

His relationship with producer Chuck Lorre guaranteed him steady work for a decade. He also appeared in The Big Bang Theory as Harry, the university cafeteria manager. He specializes in characters who always seem a little weary of life.

His style is direct. He doesn't rely on big gestures or chase cheap applause from the studio audience. He prefers the subtlety of a sideways glance or a sigh at just the right moment.

In 2020 he joined the main cast of the comedy B Positive. There he played Jerry, a patient awaiting a kidney transplant who keeps his composure in a support group. The series was canceled by CBS in May 2022 after airing its second season.