Biography

In the 1990s, Gabriel began to catch the attention of American audiences, starting with “Miller’s Crossing” (1990), a critically-acclaimed revisionist take on the gangster film directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. As Tom Reagan, the right hand of an Irish mobster (Albert Finney) neck deep in a citywide gang war with his Italian rival (Jon Polito), he exuded a cool confidence, despite routinely being beaten to a pulp, while also  falling out with his boss over the smoldering gun moll played by Marcia Gay Harden. Critical appreciation for Gabriel’s  work in this film has continued to grow in the intervening years since its release; David Thomson calls “Miller’s Crossing”  “…not just his best film, it’s one of the best performances in American film–the whole melancholy routine.” [The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2004].  Gabriel next essayed the cartoonist who creates the “Cool World” (1992) of Ralph Bakshi’s mix of live action and animation, later remembering the experience as “like being sedated for three months.” In “Point of No Return” (1993), he played a secret agent who oversees the training of a hit woman (Bridget Fonda). Later that year, he romanced two women – one vulnerable and disturbed (Debra Winger); the other lonely and insecure (Barbara Hershey) – in “A Dangerous Woman” (1993), a sensitively-handled drama from director Stephen Gyllenhaal.

A prominent force in Ireland’s film industry, Gabriel starred as an alcoholic single father in Jim Sheridan’s charming fable, “Into the West” (1993). Back in Hollywood, he vied with Steve Martin for the love and custody of a little girl in “A Simple Twist of Fate” (1994) and played an obsessive U.S. Attorney in “Trial by Jury” (1994), though he probably turned more heads as the German philosophy professor who sweeps Jo (Winona Ryder) off her feet in “Little Women” (1994). He then attained perhaps his highest screen profile since “Miller’s Crossing,” starring as a former corrupt cop-turned-expert thief in “The Usual Suspects” (1995), Bryan Singer’s excellent neo-noir thriller about a gang of thieves recruited by a mysterious underworld figure to stop a massive drug deal, only to learn there is a bigger score to be had. He next teamed with Matt Dillon and Anne Parillaud for “Frankie Starlight” (1995), a gentle and poignant period romance that saw him fall in love with a French woman (Anne Parillaud) after he helps her enter post-World War II Ireland.

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