Anna Daniels
In 2015, Woodbine was cast in a supporting role in the second season of the twisty, blackly comic FX anthology series Fargo as Mike Milligan, a Kansas City mobster who comes to town with the goal of strong-arming the heads of the local crime family, the Gerhardts, into relinquishing control of their operation after the family patriarch suffers an untimely stroke. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter late that year, the actor gushed that although the offer to appear on the series had seemingly come out of nowhere, it seemed as if he had finally found a role custom-made for his imposing yet genial presence.
“Every time I read a new script, there were moments where I said, ‘I can’t believe that I get to play this character. This is a dream come true,'” the actor said. “I literally couldn’t have conceived or conceptualized such great moments for a character, such unique and wonderful dialogue and such bizarre yet completely, in my mind, realistic scenarios. It was almost as if I went to the future and I said, ‘OK. I’m gonna write you the perfect part for you that you’ll never forget and you’ll always look back on fondly,’ and then I sent it somehow into the past and into my own hands. It was like I’d written it for myself.”
For his work on the series, Woodbine received the first Emmy nomination of his long career, and he followed up Fargo with two meaty dramatic small screen roles: as Daniel on season 2 of the WGN historical drama Underground, and as Officer Daryn Dupree — a cop helping to investigate the murder of Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. Notorious B.I.G. — on the first season of USA’s true-crime anthology series Unsolved.
Written by: Looper
