Zach was first cast in a film in Claude Gagnon’s 1987 The Kid Brother, the story of a boy born with extreme physical challenges in an impoverished steel mill town near Pittsburgh.  Kenny Easterday, the kid brother of the title, played himself, and Zach had the demanding task of playing Kenny’s father in the docudrama.

After finishing that film, it was back home to Brooklyn.  A visit to the set of Mike Nichol’s Working Girl resulted in the tiny, but memorable role of Jim (dim sum anyone?).  Around the same time, Zach was cast in the Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor vehicle See No Evil, Hear No Evil, a job that saw him in a bar fight with Mr. Wilder.

A touchstone moment occurred the next year when Zach found himself working with the great Michael Caine in the film A Shock to the System.  Zach played an executive oblivious to Mr. Caine’s character’s moral descent.  Not long after, Zach worked with another legendary performer, John Candy, playing his best friend in the soap opera spoof Delirious.

Mike Figgis’s Liebestraum was next, a film noir largely set in an abandoned department store in one of the great cast iron buildings of Binghamton, NY.  Zach played the degenerate heir to the retail fortune.

One of the perks of being a film actor is the opportunity to explore different parts of the world, and Zach’s career has provided him with numerous glimpses of different countries and parts of the U.S.  In the early ‘90s, he was stationed for three weeks in Rome, working at the famous Cinecittà Studios, playing a role in Renny Harlin’s Cliffhanger, starring Sylvester Stallone.  Then it was up to Maine, for an appearance as a somewhat sinister social worker in Mel Gibson’s The Man Without a Face.

His next role brought him to Toronto, where he played Mr. Reilly, an executive in the company run by Brian Dennehy’s character and inherited by Chris Farley in Peter Segal’s Tommy Boy. To this day, he is often recognized as Mr. Reilly from this cult classic.

Around the same time, Zach found himself in Bartlett, TX, filming James Keach’s The Stars Fell on Henrietta, a film about the early days of the discovery of oil.  Zach was privileged to film his storyline opposite the masterful Robert Duvall. 

Twister was next.  Zach spent a month filming for director Jan De Bon around Ponca City and Norman, OK, during which he had the unique experience of having a plaster cast made of his head.  He also spent some time riding around with real storm chasers, but fortunately, no tornados materialized.

Then it was back to Canada, this time to Montreal, where he filmed an adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night, directed by Keith Gordon and starring the wonderful Nick Nolte.  Zach had the disturbing task of portraying one of history’s most repugnant villains, Joseph Goebbels. 

More villainy ensued with Zach’s next role, that of mob boss Ivan Dzasokhov in Ringo Lam’s Maximum Risk, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.  Fortunately, much of the film was shot in Nice, France, so Zach was able to take in the sights of that most beautiful part of the world while being hit on the head by Mr. Van Damme.

A highlight of Zach’s career was the role of Mr. Evans in Ang Lee’s Ride with the Devil.  A sensitive character study of a man facing the effects of the Civil War on the life of his family and the town in Kansas in which he lived, it was one of the more fulfilling film roles of his life, thanks in part to a superb script by James Shamus, based on Daniel Woodrell’s novel Woe to Live On.

The same year, 1999, saw Zach in a film that deals with the social changes in America in the ‘90s — David Fincher’s Fight Club.  Playing the hapless “cornflower blue tie” executive   opposite Jack, Edward Norton’s character, Zach’s look of incredulity when Jack beats himself up in front of him added a certain emphasis to the scene.

In 2006, Zach had the good fortune to work with one of his director idols, Werner Herzog, on the film Rescue Dawn, starring Christian Bale.  The role, that of a squadron commander, was small, but the chance to spend time talking with Mr. Herzog was invaluable.

The next year saw him returning to work with David Fincher on Zodiac, in which he played seasoned DOJ agent Mel Nicolai, a role in which, with the help of makeup, he played a man fifteen years his senior.

Seven years later, another opportunity to work with a great director came up when he was cast in Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar, playing John Condon, who participated in solving the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case.

Lately, Zach completed his filming on John Keller’s Her Song, shot entirely in Antichan-de-Frontignes, a village in France’s Pyrenees Mountains.  He portrays a composer married to a novelist played by Indian film star, Kalki Koechlin.  Zach doesn’t play piano, but he learned part of a composition to play in the film.  The experience has inspired him to learn to play.

In an acting career spanning more than 35 years, Zach has been fortunate to work with some of the great film actors and directors in a medium that he reveres.  He is proud to be a character actor in the movies.