“Breaking Bad" star DEAN MORRIS was once a financial guru on Wall Street NOW he’s TV’s roughest tough guy!
AT just 5-foot-8 with a stocky build and a bald head, Dean may not exactly be leading man material.
But the Hollywood journeyman, 50, has scored a coup that most other actors would die for – he’s on TWO of TV’s hottest shows, AMC’s “Breaking Bad” and CBS’s “Under the Dome.”
On “Breaking Bad,” Norris plays tough guy DEA agent Hank Schrader, the brother-in-law of chemistry teacher-turned-drug baron Walter White (Bryan Cranston).
MEANWHILE, on the Stephen King sci-fi thriller “Under the Dome,” Norris is murderous James “Big Jim” Rennie, a used-car salesman and politician who lords over the fictitious Maine town of Chester’s Mill.
What’s truly amazing is that the Indiana-born, Harvard-educated performer almost gave up acting completely…to become a financial guru on Wall Street! He was recruited by several top investment banks in Manhattan before graduating college in 1985.
“Dean is brilliant and he could have made a fortune as a banker, but he decided to follow his love, which is acting,” a pal told The ENQUIRER. “And he’s never regretted it.”
Since he started working in the mid-’80s, Norris has played a steady stream of cops, army officers and other authorities.
But the married father of five doesn’t mind.
“The way I look at it, I’m a guy who acts to live,” he said. “You can always have a job if you can play shoot ’em-up stuff. If playing cops pays the bills, that’s what I need to do to support my family.”