John Diehl

Acting

John Diehl

Born 1950-05-01 · Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

John Diehl (born May 1, 1950) is an American character actor with over 150 credits to his name in film and television. He is best known for his roles as Charles Kawalsky in the 1994 film Stargate, Det. Larry Zito on the 1980s cop show Miami Vice, Assistant Chief Ben Gilroy on The Shield, and as "the Cruiser" in Stripes. His other notable roles include Pvt. Bucklin, the spokesman of the 2nd Maine mutineers in Gettysburg, Cooper in Jurassic Park III (2001), as G. Gordon Liddy in the Oliver Stone movie Nixon, the Klansman informant ("Mickey Mouse") in A Time to Kill, and as Keith, a credit card company supervisor in Mo Money. He also appeared as the spirit of Harley Earl in a series of commercials for Buick. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and graduated from St. Xavier High School in 1968. For a time, he flirted with a professional boxing career, leaving Miami Vice to pursue it.

Acting credits

A Time to Kill poster
7.4

A young lawyer defends a black man accused of murdering two white men who raped his 10-year-old daughter, sparking a rebirth of the KKK.

A Time to Kill

1996

Con Air poster
6.8

Newly-paroled former US Army ranger Cameron Poe is headed back to his wife, but must fly home aboard a prison transport flight dubbed "Jailbird" taking the “worst of the worst” prisoners, a group described as “pure predators”, to a new super-prison. Poe faces impossible odds when the transport plane is skyjacked mid-flight by the most vicious criminals in the country led by the mastermind — genius serial killer Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom, and backed by black militant Diamond Dog and psychopath Billy Bedlam.

Con Air

1997

Escape from New York poster
7.0

In a world ravaged by crime, the entire island of Manhattan has been converted into a walled prison where brutal prisoners roam free. After the US president crash-lands inside, war hero Snake Plissken has 24 hours to bring him back.

Escape from New York

1981

National Lampoon's Vacation poster
7.1

Clark Griswold is on a quest to take his family to the Walley World theme park for a vacation, but things don't go exactly as planned.

National Lampoon's Vacation

1983

Pearl Harbor poster
6.9

The lifelong friendship between Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker is put to the ultimate test when the two ace fighter pilots become entangled in a love triangle with beautiful Naval nurse Evelyn Johnson. But the rivalry between the friends-turned-foes is immediately put on hold when they find themselves at the center of Japan's devastating attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

Pearl Harbor

2001

Stargate poster
7.0

An interstellar teleportation device, found in Egypt, leads to a planet with humans resembling ancient Egyptians who worship the god Ra.

Stargate

1994

Falling Down poster
7.4

An ordinary man frustrated with the various flaws he sees in society begins to psychotically and violently lash out against them.

Falling Down

1993

Train Dreams poster
7.3

A logger leads a life of quiet grace as he experiences love and loss during an era of monumental change in early 20th-century America.

Train Dreams

2025

John Candy: I Like Me poster
7.8

Those who knew iconic funnyman John Candy best share his story, in their own words, through never-before-seen archival footage, imagery, and interviews.

John Candy: I Like Me

2025

The Client poster
6.7

A street-wise kid, Mark Sway, sees the suicide of Jerome Clifford, a prominent Louisiana lawyer, whose current client is Barry 'The Blade' Muldano, a Mafia hit-man. Before Jerome shoots himself, he tells Mark where the body of a Senator is buried. Clifford shoots himself and Mark is found at the scene, and both the FBI and the Mafia quickly realize that Mark probably knows more than he says.

The Client

1994

Stripes poster
6.6

Hard-luck cabbie John Winger, directionless after being fired from his job and dumped by his girlfriend, enlists in the U.S. Army with his close pal, Russell Ziskey. After his barely satisfactory performance in basic training, the irreverent Winger emerges as the figurehead for a ragtag band of misfits. However, his hijinks threaten to cause an international scandal when he inadvertently commandeers a military assault vehicle behind enemy lines.

Stripes

1981

Fire Down Below poster
5.8

When an EPA representative is murdered in a small Appalachian community, EPA undercover agent Jack Taggart is sent in—posing as a handyman working with a Christian relief agency—to determine what happened.

Fire Down Below

1997

Kickboxer 2: The Road Back poster
5.6

In this rousing sequel to Kickboxer, Tong Po broods about his defeat at the hands of Kurt Sloan. Po and his managers resort to drastic measures to goad Kurt's brother into the ring for a rematch.

Kickboxer 2: The Road Back

1991

Most Wanted poster
5.4

A Marine on death row is recruited by a shadowy U.S. military officer as part of a top-secret ops team, then gets framed for murder when the team and its officer set him up as the fall guy for the assassination of the First Lady.

Most Wanted

1997

The Ambush Murders poster
8.0

An African-American political activist is wrongfully imprisoned for killing two white policemen; he is unwary of yet another white lawyer who claims that he will help free him.

The Ambush Murders

1982

Walker poster
6.4

William Walker and his mercenary corps enter Nicaragua in the middle of the 19th century in order to install a new government by a coup d'etat.

Walker

1987

Nixon poster
6.8

A look at President Richard M. Nixon—a man carrying the fate of the world on his shoulders while battling the self-destructive demands from within—spanning his troubled boyhood in California to the shocking Watergate scandal that would end his Presidency.

Nixon

1995

Armageddon Time poster
6.4

In 1980, Queens, New York, a young Jewish boy befriends a rebellious African-American classmate to the disapproval of his privileged family and begins to reckon with growing up in a world of inequality and prejudice.

Armageddon Time

2022

Whore poster
5.3

This melodrama investigates the life of a sex worker, in a pseudo-documentary style.

Whore

1991

Gettysburg poster
7.0

In the summer of 1863, General Robert E. Lee leads the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia into Gettysburg, Pennsylvania with the goal of marching through to Washington, D.C. The Union Army of the Potomac, under the command of General George G. Meade, forms a defensive position to confront the rebel forces in what will prove to be the decisive battle of the American Civil War.

Gettysburg

1993

Lost Souls poster
5.1

A young woman becomes aware of a conspiracy to enable the Devil to walk the Earth in human form. To defeat the prophesy, she must convince a respected New York crime journalist, who is devoid of faith, that he is in fact the target of the conspiracy.

Lost Souls

2000

Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise poster
6.9

When Jesse Stone looks into the murder of a teen-age girl whose body is found floating in a local lake, it brings him up against the Boston mob and into the affluent world of a bestselling writer who exploits troubled teens.

Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise

2006

Angel poster
6.1

Molly Stewart, a teen at the top of her class who survives by working nights as a prostitute on Hollywood Blvd, finds her world beginning to fall apart when a depraved, necrophiliac serial killer begins targeting LA’s streetwalkers.

Angel

1984

Mo' Money poster
5.6

Trying to get his act together, a con artist gets a job in a credit card company. He falls in love with a fellow employee, he steals a couple of cards, everything is going great. But soon, the chief of security drags him into the big leagues of criminals...

Mo' Money

1992