Raphael Sbarge (born February 12, 1964) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Jake Straka on ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide ...
'' (2001–04),
Jiminy Cricket / Dr. Archibald Hopper on ''
Once Upon a Time
"Once upon a time" is a stock phrase used to introduce a narrative of past events, typically in fairy tales and folk tales. It has been used in some form since at least 1380 (according to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'') in storytelling in ...
'' (2011–18) and Inspector David Molk on the
TNT series ''
Murder in the First'' (2014–16). He is also known for voicing
Carth Onasi
Carth Onasi is a fictional character and party member in the 2003 action role-playing video game '' Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic'', developed by BioWare and published by LucasArts. A skilled pilot and decorated war hero of the Galacti ...
in ''
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic'' (2003), RC-1262 / "Scorch" in ''
Star Wars: Republic Commando'' (2005) and
Kaidan Alenko
Kaidan Alenko is a fictional character in BioWare's ''Mass Effect'' franchise, who acts as a party member (or "squadmate") in the first and third games in the series. The character is initially introduced in the original ''Mass Effect'' as a h ...
in the ''
Mass Effect
''Mass Effect'' is a military science fiction media franchise created by Casey Hudson, Drew Karpyshyn and Preston Watamaniuk. The franchise depicts a distant future where humanity and several alien civilizations have colonized the known univer ...
'' trilogy (2007–12).
Early life
Raphael Sbarge was born into a theater-oriented family in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...
. His mother, Jeanne Button (1930-2017), was a professional costume designer. His father, Stephen Sbarge, was an artist, writer and
stage director who named his son after
the Renaissance artist Raphael. His parents divorced. In 1981, his mother married MacDonald Eaton (1929-2013), a production designer and painter. In her private life, she was known as Mrs. Button-Eaton. Raphael Sbarge began his career at age 5 on ''
Sesame Street
''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) and ...
''.
Career
Stage
Sbarge made his stage debut in 1973 in
Edward Bond
Edward Bond (born 18 July 1934) is an English playwright, theatre director, poet, theorist and screenwriter. He is the author of some fifty plays, among them '' Saved'' (1965), the production of which was instrumental in the abolition of th ...
's stage production ''
Lear''. In 1981, the played in
Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp (born Joseph Papirofsky; June 22, 1921 – October 31, 1991) was an American theatrical producer and director. He established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in Lower Manhattan. There Papp created a y ...
's
Shakespeare in the Park
Shakespeare in the Park is a term for outdoor festivals featuring productions of William Shakespeare's plays. The term originated with the New York Shakespeare Festival in New York City's Central Park, originally created by Joseph Papp. This conc ...
production of ''
Henry IV, Part 1
''Henry IV, Part 1'' (often written as ''1 Henry IV'') is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written no later than 1597. The play dramatises part of the reign of King Henry IV of England, beginning with the battle at ...
''. The following year he made his
Broadway debut opposite
Faye Dunaway
Dorothy Faye Dunaway (born January 14, 1941) is an American actress. She is the recipient of many accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and a BAFTA Award. In 2011, the government of France made ...
in the short-lived play ''The Curse of an Aching Heart''. Other New York stage credits include ''
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depi ...
'' (1982), ''
Ah, Wilderness!
''Ah, Wilderness!'' is a comedy by American playwright Eugene O'Neill that premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theatre on October 2, 1933. It differs from a typical O'Neill play in its happy ending for the central character, and depiction of a ...
'' (1988), ''
Ghosts'' (1988), ''
The Twilight of the Golds'' (1993), ''
The Shadow Box
''The Shadow Box'' is a play written by actor Michael Cristofer. The play made its Broadway debut on March 31, 1977. It is the winner of the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play. The play was made into a telefilm, directe ...
'', and ''
Voices in the Dark
''Babylon 5: The Lost Tales'' was intended to be an anthology show set in the ''Babylon 5'' universe. It was announced by J. Michael Straczynski, creator of ''Babylon 5'', at the San Diego Comic Con in July 2006. Straczynski has described the ...
'' (1999).
Film
Sbarge's film credits include ''
Risky Business
''Risky Business'' is a 1983 American teen comedy-drama film written and directed by Paul Brickman (in his directorial debut) and starring Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay. Best known as Cruise's breakout film, ''Risky Business'' was a critica ...
'' (1983), ''
Vision Quest
A vision quest is a rite of passage in some Native American cultures. It is usually only undertaken by young males entering adulthood.
Individual Indigenous cultures have their own names for their rites of passage. "Vision quest" is an English- ...
'' (1985), ''
My Man Adam
''My Man Adam'' is a 1985 American comedy film
A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending ( black c ...
'' (1985), ''
My Science Project'' (1985), ''
Carnosaur
Carnosauria is an extinct large group of predatory dinosaurs that lived during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Starting from the 1990s, scientists have discovered some very large carnosaurs in the carcharodontosaurid family, such as ''Gig ...
'' (1993), ''
The Hidden II'' (1993), ''
Babes in Toyland'' (1997), ''
Independence Day
An independence day is an annual event commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or more rarely after the end of a military occupation. Man ...
'' (1996), ''
BASEketball
''BASEketball'' is a 1998 American sports comedy film co-written and directed by David Zucker and starring '' South Park'' creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, along with Yasmine Bleeth, Jenny McCarthy, Robert Vaughn, Ernest Borgnine, and D ...
'' (1998), ''
Message in a Bottle
A message in a bottle (abbrev. MIB) is a form of communication in which a message is sealed in a container (typically a bottle) and released into a conveyance medium (typically a body of water).
Messages in bottles have been used to send distres ...
'' (1999), ''
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the ...
'' (2001), ''
Home Room'' (2002) and ''
The Duel'' (2015).
Television
Sbarge has appeared in numerous
television series
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed ...
and
television movie
A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...
s, including ''
A Streetcar Named Desire
''A Streetcar Named Desire'' is a play written by Tennessee Williams and first performed on Broadway on December 3, 1947. The play dramatizes the experiences of Blanche DuBois, a former Southern belle who, after encountering a series of pe ...
'' with
Ann-Margret
Ann-Margret Olsson (born April 28, 1941) is a Swedish–American actress, singer, and dancer. As an actress and singer, she is credited as Ann-Margret.
She is known for her roles in '' Pocketful of Miracles'' (1961), '' State Fair'' (1962), ' ...
in 1984; the pilot of the Fox series ''
Werewolf
In folklore, a werewolf (), or occasionally lycanthrope (; ; uk, Вовкулака, Vovkulaka), is an individual that can shapeshift into a wolf (or, especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature), either purposel ...
'' in 1987; ''
Billionaire Boys Club'', ''
Back to Hannibal: The Return of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn'' in 1990; ''
Murder 101'' with
Pierce Brosnan
Pierce Brendan Brosnan (; born 16 May 1953) is an Irish actor and film producer. He is best known as the fifth actor to play secret agent James Bond in the Bond film series, starring in four films from 1995 to 2002 ('' GoldenEye'', '' Tomorrow ...
and ''
Final Verdict'' with
Treat Williams
Richard Treat Williams (born December 1, 1951) is an American actor, writer and aviator who has appeared on film, stage and television in over 120 credits. He first became well known for his starring role in the 1979 musical film ''Hair'', and lat ...
in 1991; ''
Breast Men
''Breast Men'' is a 1997 American, semibiographical, dark drama film; it was written by John Stockwell and directed by Lawrence O'Neil for HBO.
Plot
Dr. Kevin Saunders (played by David Schwimmer) and Dr. William Larson (played by Chris Co ...
'' with
Chris Cooper; ''
Quicksilver Highway
''Quicksilver Highway'' is a 1997 television comedy horror film directed by Mick Garris. It is based on Clive Barker's short story " The Body Politic" and Stephen King's 1992 short story " Chattery Teeth". The film was originally shown on televis ...
'' with
Christopher Lloyd
Christopher Allen Lloyd (born October 22, 1938) is an American actor. He has appeared in many theater productions, films, and on television since the 1960s. He is known for portraying Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown in the ''Back to the Future'' tril ...
in 1997; and ''
Introducing Dorothy Dandridge'' with
Halle Berry in 1999.
He had recurring roles in five episodes of ''
Star Trek: Voyager'' in 1996, and in the first four episodes of the sixth season of ''
24''. From 2001 to 2004, Sbarge was a regular cast member of ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide ...
'', starring
Simon Baker
Simon Lucas Baker (born 30 July 1969) is an Australian actor in television and film, as well as a director. He is known for his lead roles in the CBS television series ''The Mentalist'' as Patrick Jane and ''The Guardian'' as Nicholas Fallin ...
. He voiced the character Professor Zei in the
second season ''
Avatar: The Last Airbender'' episode "The Library". He was in an episode of ''
Six Feet Under''. In 2007, he appeared in a two-part episode of ''
Journeyman
A journeyman, journeywoman, or journeyperson is a worker, skilled in a given building trade or craft, who has successfully completed an official apprenticeship qualification. Journeymen are considered competent and authorized to work in that f ...
''. In 2009, he appeared in an episode of ''
The Mentalist
''The Mentalist'' is an American drama television series that ran from September 23, 2008, until February 18, 2015, broadcasting 151 episodes over seven seasons, on CBS. Created by Bruno Heller, who was also its executive producer, the show f ...
''. In 2010, he was in "Practically Perfect", a season five episode of ''
Dexter
Dexter may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Dexter, the main character of the American animated series ''Dexter's Laboratory'' that aired from 1996 to 2003
* Dexter, a fictional character in the British web series ''Diary of a Bad Man''
* Dexte ...
'', as Jim McCourt, an Internal Affairs Agent.
He had a recurring role as Howard Aucker on ''
The Young and the Restless
''The Young and the Restless'' (often abbreviated as ''Y&R'') is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. The show is set in fictional Genoa City (not the real-life similarly-named Genoa City ...
''. He played Brian McGuire on ''
Better Days'', which lasted for five weeks before being canceled. In 2011, he first appeared in ''
Once Upon a Time
"Once upon a time" is a stock phrase used to introduce a narrative of past events, typically in fairy tales and folk tales. It has been used in some form since at least 1380 (according to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'') in storytelling in ...
'', playing the dual roles of Archie Hopper, a therapist, and his fairy tale counterpart,
Jiminy Cricket
Jiminy Cricket is the The Walt Disney Company, Disney version of the "Talking Cricket" (Italian language, Italian: ''Il Grillo Parlante''), a fictional character created by Italian writer Carlo Collodi for his 1883 children's book ''The Adventu ...
from ''
Pinocchio
Pinocchio ( , ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of the children's novel ''The Adventures of Pinocchio'' (1883) by Italian writer Carlo Collodi of Florence, Tuscany. Pinocchio was carved by a woodcarver named Geppetto in a Tuscan vil ...
''. In 2013, he played Larry Hermann on ''
Chicago Fire''. He played Inspector David Molk, a philosophizing SFPD homicide inspector, on
TNT's 2014 series, ''
Murder in the First''.
In 2016, he made a cameo appearance as the deceased father of Jimmy McGill on the television series ''
Better Call Saul
''Better Call Saul'' is an American crime and legal drama television series created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. Part of the ''Breaking Bad'' franchise, it is a spin-off of Gilligan's previous series, '' Breaking Bad'', and serves as a ...
''.
Video games
He also has
voice acted for
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...
s such as ''
Grim Fandango
''Grim Fandango'' is a 1998 adventure game directed by Tim Schafer and developed and published by LucasArts for Microsoft Windows. It is the first adventure game by LucasArts to use 3D computer graphics overlaid on Rendering (computer graphics), ...
,'' ''
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic,'' and ''
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords'' as
Carth Onasi
Carth Onasi is a fictional character and party member in the 2003 action role-playing video game '' Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic'', developed by BioWare and published by LucasArts. A skilled pilot and decorated war hero of the Galacti ...
; as
RC-1262 "Scorch" in ''
Star Wars: Republic Commando''; and as
Kaidan Alenko
Kaidan Alenko is a fictional character in BioWare's ''Mass Effect'' franchise, who acts as a party member (or "squadmate") in the first and third games in the series. The character is initially introduced in the original ''Mass Effect'' as a h ...
in the ''
Mass Effect
''Mass Effect'' is a military science fiction media franchise created by Casey Hudson, Drew Karpyshyn and Preston Watamaniuk. The franchise depicts a distant future where humanity and several alien civilizations have colonized the known univer ...
'' series.
Directing
In 2013, Sbarge began
directing Web series
A web series (also known as a web show) is a series of scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet, which first emerged in the late 1990s and became more prominent in the early 2000s. A single in ...
, serving as executive producer and director of ''On Begley Street'' and ''Jenna's Studio''. His 2017
short film
A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...
''The Bird Who Could Fly'' premiered at the Asians on Film Festival. The Bird Who Could Fly, won Best Director, Best Ensemble, and Audience Awards at several Asian festivals around the US. He filmed Broadway actor Marty Moran in his Obie Award winning play called The Tricky Part, which deals with the complicated issue of male sexual abuse. It played many festivals around the US, winning Best Director at the Awareness Festival.
Sbarge's 2019 documentary ''LA Foodways'' was nominated for an
Emmy Award
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
in the Education/Information category. LA Foodways is a one-hour feature documentary and a six-part series that he directed and produced. It debuted on KCET-PBS, which his production company, Wishing Well Entertainment, co-produced with the network. He has directed and produced several other films for KCET that have aired. His current feature, called Only in Theaters, had its theatrical premier at 7 theatres in Los Angeles in Nov. 2022. The film follows a fourth generation family business, a beloved art house cinema chain with ties to the origins of Hollywood called The Laemmle Theaters. Receiving rave reviews in the LA Times, Daily News, Film Treat, and Film Week, it was called “Essential viewing for every filmgoer,” "Beautiful and complicated,” "Beautiful and timely,” “An American story,” and “This film could not be any more important.” Only in Theaters is opening in New York at the IFC, and New Plaza Cinema’s on Jan 18th and 20th.
Environmentalism
Sbarge, actor
Ed Begley, Jr.
Edward James Begley Jr. (born September 16, 1949) is an American actor and environmental activist. Begley has appeared in hundreds of films, television shows, and stage performances. He played Dr. Victor Ehrlich on the television series '' St. ...
, and Rachelle Carson Begley launched an
environmentalist
An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that s ...
non-profit organization calle
Green Wish aimed at donating to local green organizations through donations at retailers throughout the country. Sbarge was also executive producer of ''On Begley Street'', a
web series
A web series (also known as a web show) is a series of scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet, which first emerged in the late 1990s and became more prominent in the early 2000s. A single in ...
chronicling the deconstruction of Begley's home and the "building of North America's greenest, most sustainable home."
"About On Begley Street"
On Begley Street; accessed May 3, 2015.
Personal life
Sbarge is in a relationship with his life partner artist/writer Jenna DeAngeles
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
Theatre
References
External links
Raphael Sbarge Official website
*
*
LLA Archives entry
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sbarge, Raphael
1965 births
Living people
Male actors from New York City
American male film actors
American male soap opera actors
American male stage actors
American male television actors
American male video game actors
American male voice actors
American environmentalists
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors