Thomas Haden Church Biography, Age, Wife, Wings, Net Worth, Movies and TV Shows

Thomas Haden Church Biography | Who Is Thomas Haden Church?

Thomas Haden Church (Thomas Richard McMillen) is an American actor, director, and writer. After co-starring in the 1990s sitcom Wings, Haden became known for his film roles, including his Academy Award-nominated performance in Sideways and his role as the Sandman in Spider-Man 3.

Church left high school in 1977 to work in the oil fields of Lousiana. He later returned to graduate from Harlingen High Schol in 1979. Haden attended the University of North Texas while living in Dallas. He also made his directorial debut with Rolling Kansas.

Thomas Haden Church Age | How Old Is Thomas Haden Church?

Thomas Richard McMillen was born on June 17, 1960 in Yolo, California, U.S. He is 58 years old as of 2018.

Thomas Haden Church Family

Thomas was born to Maxine (née Sanders) and Carlos “Carl” Richard McMillen who served for eight years in the Marines and also saw action in the Korean War after 1962. Richard worked as a surveyor. His parents divorced and his mother moved to Texas.

His mother remarried in 1969 to widower George A. Quesada, a veteran of an Army Air Forces reconnaissance unit which served in Guam in World War II. Thomas took his stepfather’s surname for a time but changed it to “Haden Church,” which was extracted from the names of other relatives when people found Quesada difficult to pronounce.

His biological father Carl died in 2008 and his stepfather in 2012.

Mia Zottoli Thomas Haden Church

Church was previously in a relationship with Mia Zotolli  from 2002 to 2008, with whom he has two children.

Thomas Haden Church Wife | Thomas Haden Church Married | Is Thomas Haden Church Married?

Church was never married to Mia or anyone else despite a 2008 article in the LA times incorrectly claiming he was married to his partner.

Thomas Haden Church Voice Over

Richard started in the entertainment business as a radio personality and also doing voice-over work. He then changed his name to “Thomas Haden Church”, taking “Haden” and “Church” from his ancestry.

Actor Thomas Haden Church

Haden moved to California to pursue an acting career after appearing in an independent film. Haden’s character delivers a last love letter from “Eddie Labec” to “Carla” in the Cheers episode, “Death Takes a Vacation on Ice”.

Thomas Haden Church Wings

Haden played the part of slow-witted aircraft mechanic Lowell Mather for six seasons (1990–95) on the NBC sitcom Wings.

Church also worked in television for two more seasons with a lead role on Ned & Stacey opposite Debra Messing. He has also had supporting roles in films such as Tombstone, George of the Jungle, and The Specials. Church has often played villains or comic relief in films, such as in Demon Knight.

In late 2000 Church took a break from films. He made his directorial debut with Rolling Kansas in 2003 after having small roles in films such as Monkeybone and 3000 Miles to Graceland. Haden also has voiceover work in commercials, such as for Merrill Lynch and Icehouse beer.

Thomas Haden Church Sideways

Director Alexander Payne later called him regarding the role of “Jack”, the selfish best friend to Paul Giamatti’s character, in Sideways in 2003. During the audition, Haden stripped naked to read the audition scene, later saying “To me, it was painfully obvious… I was reading the scene where Jack comes in naked and there has to be in-born vulnerability in the scene.” Church later found that he was the only actor to strip down for the audition. Sideways earned acclaim for Haden. Church won an IFP Independent Spirit Award and was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Church has since appeared in films such as Idiocracy, and done voice-over work on films such as Over the Hedge. He has also starred in one of AMC’s highest rated television productions, Broken Trail, with Robert Duvall, in 2006, for which he won an Emmy award.

Thomas Haden Church Spider Man | Thomas Haden Church Sandman

He appeared as the tragic villain Sandman in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 starring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst in 2007.

Church was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2005. He appeared as “Joe Six-Pack” in a video on funnyordie.com in October 2008, challenging Joe the Plumber by drinking more beer. He also starred in the FEARnet webseries, Zombie Roadkill, alongside David Dorfman.

Church is appearing in the HBO original series Divorce where he plays Robert.

Why Did Thomas Haden Church Leave Wings

According to www.sfgate.com Church says,”I was frustrated for years on ‘Wings.’ “Even in the very first season I had been told that it was going to be a real strong ensemble show, not unlike ‘Cheers.’

“And it quickly became apparent that they were going to concentrate on Tim, and Steve (Weber), and Crystal, and the rest of us were going to be tertiary characters.”

A few years into the series, he tried to get out. He said he was “threatened with a mammoth lawsuit,” and dropped his escape plans until his contract expired. Three days after shooting the season finale of “Wings” in 1995, he was at work on the “Ned & Stacey” pilot.

Thomas Haden Church Net Worth

The Divorce star has an estimated net worth of $20 million.

Thomas Haden Church Height

Hadden stands at a height of 1.83 m.

Thomas Haden Church Ranch

He lives on his 2,000-acre (810 ha) ranch in Kerrville, Texas and he rented a house in New Rochelle, New York during the filming of Divorce.

Thomas Haden Church Movies And Tv Shows

Thomas Haden Church Movies | Thomas Haden Church Films | Thomas Haden Church Series| Thomas Haden Church Filme | Thomas Haden Church Movies List | Thomas Haden Church Filmography

Thomas Haden Church Tv Shows | Thomas Haden Church Tv Series

Thomas Haden Church Daddy’s Home

Thomas Haden Church Max

Thomas Haden Church Interview

How Sarah Jessica Parker Got Thomas Haden Church Back on TV

Published: OCT 17, 2016

Source: https://www.esquire.com

ESQ: How did you get involved in the show? Was it offered to you, or did you audition for it?

Thomas Haden Church: The answer is honest and I’m always afraid it comes off a little cocky, but I mean, I don’t audition ever, for anything. I haven’t since Sideways, which was 13 years ago. I just don’t do it. I honestly never even liked auditioning before, but especially since Sideways.

Now for this, it came to me because of Mrs. Parker—we had done a movie together called Smart People a number of years ago. We really hit it off. We had a lot of fun promoting the movie. I lost touch with her for like seven years and it was the beginning of 2015 and she sent me a lovely note along with the script. She said, “I know you don’t do TV,” which I don’t, hadn’t for twenty years—a TV series anyway—and she said, “Please read it. I thought of you first,” which is so flattering. She said, ‘Please read it and let’s just have a conversation about it. Even if you’re not interested in it, I would still love to hear your thoughts.” And I read it and I thought it was a unique perspective on what is clearly an over-wrought, overly familiar stain in America with marriages coming undone.

Thomas Haden Church: Especially once it all got mapped out what the first season was going to be and began, they were absolutely collaborative. We didn’t start shooting until mid-November. They started sending me scripts in August to get my notes, to have conference calls. But once I saw the schematic and we started tinkering— “What about this and what about that, and what about in the midst of this story we can tweak and modify?” That process started three months before—even before that. There were conversations also last year where we just kept on talking and communicating. Once I saw what we wanted to lay out, and clearly it’s open ended, I saw it as a five-hour movie. Call it whatever you want—a mini-series or whatever—it’s still got a continuing story. This is what I said to a lot of my industry colleagues and friends that have only seen the first episode. I said “Look, don’t be too quick to judge. You’ve only seen 30 minutes of a plot of a movie.” That’s like saying, that’s like saying Ben-Hur is a piece of shit after fifteen minutes, you know? You have no idea what’s going to happen. There’s a really awesome chariot race, right? But I mean, that’s what it is: Divorce is a going to be a Biblical saga…only about a divorce.

American television has definitely been following a British model in recent years, and Sharon Horgan obviously comes from that part of the world. I think it’s been very successful in the last few years here. It’s interesting how you talk about shooting it as a collaborative experience. I’ve interviewed a few people who worked on Transparentand they say that that is sort of how that show kind of works, especially for the actors. It’s more about developing character first as opposed to standing in a certain spot and letting the camera decide what you’re supposed to do.

Thomas Haden Church: Well, I want to comment on that because when you have people like Jeffrey Tambor, who I think is fantastic. I’ve always thought he was just terrific and obviously he’s wonderful in that show. But you get to a certain age and—I don’t know, I think we’re close in age, he might be a bit older, but I’ve been doing this as a professional for 28 years in January. You get to a certain point where you can’t really be hired just as an actor any more if you care. If you care and you have demonstrated that you have versatility and you’re not just speaking dialogue and you’re not just a paycheck actor, you want to take on roles that are more fulfilling. If I care, if I want to be fulfilled, if I want this to be a rewarding challenge, then I’m going to have to give everything I can and help the other actors, help the producers and writers understand the guy that I’m trying to deliver. He’s going to have to live inside of me and I’m going to have to live inside of him.

I mean, look, when I started out on Wings, they were like, “Here’s your dialogue, you’re going to help us block this thing.” It was a very nailed-down thing, and god bless all those people, but they were not interested in being terribly collaborative with a bunch of young, relatively inexperienced actors. They just weren’t. They had a machine that worked very well for them. But I learned how to work in the system. I worked for two years for ABC and Disney writing and trying to create something. In two years we wrote I think four pilots, and every one of them got thrown into the old shit pan. But, I mean, it was the same thing—at that time in the late ’90s, ABC did things with a machine in place. And again, it was a very successful machine. I was partnered with a guy named Dave Mandel, who’s a very successful writer, and we labored sort of anonymously because we never got anything shot. But we worked. We wrote, we turned in drafts, they were rejected, and we wrote some more.

You and Sarah Jessica Parker are playing a couple who have this long history together that we don’t see. Did you work together beyond who was writing each episode to sort of create a dynamic between the two of you that you brought to the table, maybe in terms of a subtext?

Thomas Haden Church: Everyone who’s ever worked with her knows this about her: S.J. has no hesitation to text you, email, call, and just say, “Hey, can we arrange a call?” She and I really did take it upon ourselves to create a lot of the back history of Robert and Frances. We just started that conversation with Sharon and Paul and the other writers on the pilot. And then she and I, when we were waiting to go back [to shoot], periodically would pick up the phone and talk about an hour, talk about Robert and Francis. I mean, I’m not going to say that it was completely exclusive of that, because it never is—it always involves talking to Sharon and Paul. It just shows how communicative she was. And she’s wonderfully articulate and very, very specific in conveying her ideas, and I love that. She’s just terrific. I mean, you can’t say enough kind things about her because she’s just such a generous, professional, disciplined individual to work with. She’s been laboring behind the scenes on this particular story for years, even before Sharon became involved.

I was trying to think of other movies or television shows about divorce, even comedic ones. I think the first one that came to mind, which I feel like is such a throwback, was The War of the Roses. Which is obviously a super broad, black comedy. And I was also thinking about An Unmarried Woman with Jill Clayburgh.

Yeah, that movie is phenomenal. I think that a lot of movies and television shows that tackle this issue tend to focus more on the wife’s perspective. What’s so interesting about Divorcewas that you have these two people in it and you get both of their perspectives, but you do see Frances cheating on her husband and sort of initiating the break; Robert, then, is the spurned lover. It was sort of surprising to see.

Thomas Haden Church: Well, I’ll go even farther back and there are movies, thematically, that I talked about a lot that are not comedies at all—just Ordinary People and Kramer vs. Kramer. Kramer has a few more comedic moments, but Ordinary People… Hmmm…

Very, very depressing.

Thomas Haden Church: Yeah, but to me, I talked about them a lot thematically when we would get into script meetings because the drama that is maybe even more paramount to the comedy. There’s that scene where I give a speech to her, and parts of it are so ridiculous—like when I say that she’s Jesse James and I’m Sandra Bullock. But it works because it’s somebody just going off and he doesn’t know what to say; it’s just a spontaneously ridiculous, you know, giving her the high jazz. There’s going to be funny stuff for sure—there are times when it’s very entertaining, but there’s times when it’s a bit heartbreaking. They have two kids, who are unwilling participants in this mess, and you’ll get to see it from their eyes.

To end on a lighter question: Your mustache on this show is very impressive. Was that a real mustache?

Thomas Haden Church: Thank you. Yes, it is a real mustache. I mean, ultimately it worked for the character to have a mustache. I think that everybody liked it. It was never really intended to be, or to turn into, what it did. We were probably about five or six episodes in and they wrote in which Robert shaves the mustache, and I said, “Alright, well clearly this is up for negotiation.” And they were like, “Yeah, you know, it’s your face.” But we decided it might signal a big change that they’re separated and he’s on the loose and he’s single. I thought about that every one of my divorced friends—the first thing they did was lose 30 pounds and start working out. And so we all talked about it and I said, “You know, I think it’s a little too obvious to lose the mustache.” I think maybe it becomes a bit of a security in life for him that he’s going to change a little, not going to change completely because he still is hoping [for things to work out].

It never came off, but buddy let me tell you what: It was March 2 and they were like, “Okay, you’re a wrap, that’s it, you’re done.” And I’m like, “You’re sure? There’s no chance at all, tomorrow, a week from now, two weeks from now?” They were like, “Nope. Nope. We know we’ve got everything. We’ve reviewed everything in editing. You’re done.” I went home and, I’m not kidding you, I walked through the front door and walked straight to the bathroom and grabbed my shaver and shaved that thing off my face. I was done. I was sick of it. I don’t know if you have a mustache—I mean, I admire people like Sam Elliott. Sam Elliott has had a mustache for probably 50 years.

I know, it’s like Sam Elliott isn’t Sam Elliott without that mustache.

Thomas Haden Church: I mean, I did a movie with Sam Elliott with no mustache, and then right after that we did Tombstone. It seemed like he had grown it back in a week.

I believe that!

Thomas Haden Church: We start shooting again February 1, so probably sometime before Thanksgiving I’ll have to start growing my mustache out again.

Wow, that’s some commitment. I appreciate that.

Thomas Haden Church: We actually had talked about the possibility of him not having it at the beginning of the second season. In fact, Paul and Sharon and I were talking last week about the possibility of him not having it. Because we think, between the last episode of the first and the first episode of the second season, they’re thinking that there’s going to be at least a month of time that goes by before the story picks up again. So it’s quite conceivable that Robert might lose the mustache. I may just say “Hey, I don’t want him to have it,” and they’ll be like, “Fine.” They won’t care. I mean, everybody likes it, but you know what I mean? You don’t want to stay with the joke too long. There’s so much commentary on it throughout the first season that it kind of probably needs to go away. I don’t know. We’ll see.

Yeah, well maybe you can shave it off on camera and there’ll be dramatic reveal.

Thomas Haden Church: There you go. A very cathartic moment there.