Fox appears in World War Z, late in a career whose defining work was a serialised mystery series about survivors of a crash. That performance was built on a character convinced he had to fix everything, and its interest came from how often that conviction made things worse.
He studied economics before acting and came to prominence through an American family drama series in the nineteen nineties, several years before the mystery series that made him internationally known. He has worked intermittently in film since, generally in genre and thriller material.
Recurring subjects: compulsion to lead, men whose competence conceals a need to be needed, and authority that alienates the people it protects. He plays intensity rather than warmth, and he is comfortable making a protagonist genuinely difficult to like across a long run, which is a considerable risk in a series built on audience loyalty.
His serialised drama was among the most watched and most argued about television series of its decade and reshaped what network drama attempted structurally. Its finale remains a permanent reference in discussions of how serialised mysteries end, which is itself a measure of the investment it generated.
For viewers interested in a leading man playing an unlikeable protagonist. Suited to anyone approaching the serialised mystery, and to those who know only his later film appearances. The series rewards watching from the first episode rather than sampling.
