The Shortest Men In Hollywood
Starring in films like Jaws, Stand by Me, and Mr. Holland’s Opus, Richard Dreyfuss was an acclaimed actor often appearing on the big screen between the 1970s and ’90s. The Golden Globe winner is 5 feet 5 inches tall. During an interview with Today, he used a short stature as a comparison for why he doesn’t feel ashamed of his mental illness (he has bipolar disorder).
“It’s like being ashamed that you’re 5-foot-6 or something,” he said in the interview. “It’s just part of me.”
Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe doesn’t think his height is holding him back in Hollywood. During an interview with Playboy, the 5-feet-5-inches-tall actor was asked if his size limits the roles he plays. He responded: “I don’t think so. Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise have very different careers, and they’re both about the same height as I am. I could play a soldier. The minimum height for a marine is five feet, and I’m well above that.”
He went on to quip that if he were cast in a football movie, it would be as a general manager, not the quarterback.
Funnyman Ken Jeong, who’s had roles in Community and The Hangover, is 5 feet 5 inches tall. Perhaps more fascinating than his height, though? The comedian has a medical degree and was a general practitioner before switching to acting. His breakout role was as a doctor in the comedy Knocked Up. In fact, he took a week off from his real doctor job so he could star as a doctor.
Johnny Galecki, who played a physicist in The Big Bang Theory, is 5 feet 5 inches tall. While he hasn’t been widely quoted on the topic of height, he does think the image of geeks is changing. Geeks, he said in an interview with The New York Times Arts Beat blog, are akin to modern-day rock stars.
“We have Nobel Prize winners asking if they can guest-star on the show,” he said. “The image of a scientist in the last 10 to 15 years has changed drastically. It used to be pasty guys in a basement with beakers and now it’s Steve Jobs — they’re almost the rock stars of our age.”
Starring as detective Danny “Danno” Williams on Hawaii 5-0, Scott Caan has an extra five inches on the show’s name, as his height clocks in at 5 feet 5 inches. The CBS crime drama reboot that’s set on Hawaii’s beaches is now in its 10th season.
More interesting than height, though, is Caan’s signature, slicked-back hairstyle. In an interview with Esquire, Caan said he was influenced by the greasers in the 1983 movie The Outsiders.
“The only other things I’ve ever done are shave my head bald and wear a Mohawk. [My hair] just wants to go back,” he said.
Toby Jones landed the role of Truman Capote in the biopic Infamous in 2006. Since then, it seems like the English actor has been everywhere. Jones, who is 5 feet 5 inches, has starred in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Dad’s Army and Disney’s Christopher Robin among many other movies. He’s also the voice of Dobby in the Harry Potter films. (But if you ever run into him, don’t ask him to do the Dobby voice. He’s retired it for good, according to an interview with Radio Times.)
BD Wong, part of the Jurassic World franchise, has had substantial recurring roles on Law and Order: SVU, Gotham, and Mr. Robot. But in an interview with GQ in which Wong dives into a persistent problem of casting Asian-American actors as supporting roles, Wong talks about wanting bigger parts in movies and being cautious about roles that typecast him as a medical professional. The 5-foot-5-inch-tall actor also stars on Broadway and won a Tony Award for his performance as Song Liling in M. Butterfly.
Comedy runs in the Stiller family. Father of comedian Ben Stiller, Jerry Stiller has starred in movies like Zoolander with his son. He’s also played the quick-to-anger Frank Costanza, the father of George Costanza, on Seinfeld and the always-scheming Arthur Spooner on The King of Queens.
In the 1960s, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara made up the popular husband-and-wife comedy duo Stiller and Meara. Jerry Stiller, who is 5 feet 5 inches tall, was also a frequent guest on the The Ed Sullivan Show.
Writer and director Woody Allen, whose career spans more than six decades, has often starred in his own work, including two of his most famous films, Annie Hall and Manhattan. He got his start in comedy at age 15 by writing jokes for a newspaper. Allen’s legacy, though, has been shrouded in controversy as his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow has alleged he sexually assaulted her when she was a child. The filmmaker has denied the allegations and has never been criminally charged.
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