With his tough-guy image and stocky build, American actor Dylan Bruno carved out a niche for himself as a character player in steel-toed action and adventure movies, beginning in the late '90s. These ran the gamut from critically praised masterworks -- such as Steven Spielberg's much-ballyhooed war opus Saving Private Ryan (1998) -- to John Irvin's less successful WWII telemovie When Trumpets Fade, that same year. Perhaps afraid of limiting himself, Bruno made a conscious attempt to expand his range into alternate genres, but successive roles essentially constituted variations on this original typecast. For example, Bruno appeared in the gentle romantic drama Where the Heart Is (2000) -- about an expectant blue-collar mother (Natalie Portman) who moves into an Oklahoma Wal-Mart -- as the rough-hewn redneck boyfriend, Willy Jack Perkins, who deserts her. Similarly, Bruno appeared in the TV drama The Pennsylvania Miners' Story (2002) as one of the gritty working-class men of the title who find themselves trapped in a mine with a decidedly slim chance of survival.
Bruno subsequently built up his television resumé during the mid-2000s. He was particularly memorable as Colby Granger, a military veteran-cum-federal agent, on the popular detective drama Numb3rs (2005).
