Marvel Cinematic Universe profile: A look at Tommy Lee Jones’ career

For the role of Colonel Phillips, Marvel Studios recruited Tommy Lee Jones specifically for the World War II set Captain America: The First Avenger.

Captain America is the last of the four main original Avenger heroes to get his solo movie. Each series had their respective veteran thespian to add “respectability” to a genre that some critics would not consider high art.

Jeff Bridges brought his acting experience to the first Iron Man; now a 7-time Oscar nominee, he actually won a statue (for his heartbreaking turn in Crazy Heart) a few years after Iron Man broke ground for the MCU. William Hurt’s presence was felt in The Incredible Hulk; another multiple Oscar nominee, with a monumental win as a gay prisoner in Kiss of the Spider Woman. And Anthony Hopkins schooled the up-and-coming Thor troupe – he is now a two-time Oscar winner for The Silence of the Lambs and The Father.

Then in Captain America: The First Avenger, it was Tommy Lee Jones’ turn to add gravitas to the ensemble. He is also a celebrated veteran performer with an Oscar under his belt; along with several other nominations. Perhaps the wartime adventure story within the superhero genre helped draw Jones to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Colonel Chester Phillips is a pertinent role that fits Jones’ persona. He is deliberately stern and unphased by the extraordinary circumstances unfolding around him. Director Joe Johnston was clearly confident in his ability to deliver dry comedic one-liners, such as “I thought ‘what the hell, maybe he’d be useful to you, like a gerbil’” when poking fun at a skinny, frail Steve Rogers.

A wonderful aspect of The First Avenger is that as the story progresses and Steve’s centrality develops, so do the supplemental characters that surround him, including Phillips. Steve grows on Phillips and the latter’s attitude improves and becomes even more intense as the stakes escalate. Alongside Hayley Atwell’s Agent Carter, Jones projects increasing fortitude as Phillips and the Colonel demonstrates that he too is willing to risk his life to defeat evil.

Phillips was a departure compared with Jones’ previous comic book adaptation. In Batman Forever, he played an outrageous, maniacal Two-Face. His stone-faced personality is utilized more in the Men in Black movies as Agent K, opposite a zestful Will Smith. Another action franchise for Jones was in the Bourne series, although he only appeared in Jason Bourne, which is the fifth and final film. As yet another agency director hunting Bourne, this part was much less memorable than Colonel Phillips in The First Avenger.

Jones’ most recognized career accomplishments come from his more dramatic work. He started as a bit actor in Love Story, a 1970 romantic hit featuring Ryan O’Neal. His breakout came later in the decade as a former prisoner of war in Rolling Thunder. Then in 1980, Jones starred as Loretta Lynn’s husband in Coal Miner’s Daughter. Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones are dynamic and captivated audiences as the two convincingly circumnavigate out of the rural Kentucky backdrop and through the country music landscape.

The rest of the 1980s was less lucrative for Jones as a movie star, since he was relegated to mostly slighter television prospects. He burst into the 1990s with Fire Birds, JFK, Under Siege, The Fugitive, and Heaven and Earth. He played second fiddle in both Fire Birds and Under Siege, two military action films that were serviceable, yet relatively popular at that time.

JFK and Heaven and Earth were Oliver Stone epics, where Jones occupied a supporting role. Unlike Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July, Heaven and Earth focused on the effect of the war on Vietnamese citizens and Jones depicts an American marine who falls in love. In JFK, Jones portrays a man accused of conspiring to assassinate Kennedy; it is one of his most poised and thoughtfully articulated performances of his career.

Jones won his Oscar for The Fugitive, where his U.S. Marshal tracks Harrison Ford’s escapee on the run. Jones was certainly entertaining to watch and earned a headlining sequel, entitled U.S. Marshals, where he emulates his Fugitive mannerisms and authoritarian declaration of orders to his men. Other notable roles in the mid-90s, were in The Client – a commanding presence in a lacking legal thriller, Blue Sky – contemplating marital uncertainties opposite an admirable Jessica Lange, and especially Natural Born Killers (another Stone flick) – as the delightfully eccentric and agitated warden.

Unsurprisingly, Jones has also submitted some outstanding work in this century as well. He plays a woeful cowboy in Ron Howard’s western, The Missing. He is apart of the extensive ensemble of Robert Altman’s swan song, A Prairie Home Companion. In 2007, Jones generates meticulous emotional balance in In the Valley of Elah and closes No Country for Old Men with an eloquent monologue.

At this point in his career, he was moving between genre films like Men in Black sequels and sweeping cinema, working with directors like the Coen Brothers and Steven Spielberg. Shortly after The First Avenger, Jones joined the historical drama, Lincoln, as a motivated abolitionist who had a lot to gain from the Emancipation Proclamation.

Tommy Lee Jones’ Top 10 Movie Roles
1. Doolittle Lynn in Coal Miner’s Daughter
2. Clay Shaw in JFK
3. Warden McClusky in Natural Born Killers
4. Hank Deerfield in In the Valley of Elah
5. Sheriff Bell in No Country for Old Men
6. Sam Gerard in The Fugitive and U.S. Marshals
7. Congressman Stevens in Lincoln
8. Major Hank Marshall in Blue Sky
9. George Briggs in The Homesman
10. Clifford McBride in Ad Astra

Jones was also great in The Homesman and Ad Astra. In the former, Jones takes a turn at deconstructing the western, directing himself effectively amongst a group of fantastic actresses. In James Gray’s Ad Astra, Jones evokes a disillusioned astronaut whose failures to reach extraterrestrial life echo his failure to connect with his family. These strong showings unfortunately knock Captain America: The First Avenger out of his top ten performances.

Since The First Avenger singularly takes place during World War II, Tommy Lee Jones has not had the opportunity to reprise his role in the contemporary MCU. Although fans can’t expect to see Jones again, Colonel Phillips will remain a bright spot in the company of the fine actor’s substantial body of work.