When Bones costar Eric Milligan first met TJ Thyne, he said, “You’re that guy… the guy who’s been in everything. There are a few people who’ve been in everything and you’re one of those guys.” *

Here are a few of the eclectic characters TJ has portrayed:

• Troubled psychiatric patient with an unusually painful condition (Huff)

• Slippery weasel of a lawyer who tries to intimidate Albert Finney and Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich)

• Young, inexperienced doctor who gets himself kicked out of the delivery room (Friends)

• Innocent civilian forced into helping Jack Bauer in a tense terrorist battle over nuclear codes (24)

• Stu Lou Who, older brother to Cindy Lou Who “who was no more than two” (How The Grinch Stole Christmas, the Jim Carrey/Ron Howard film version of Dr. Seuss’ classic holiday tale)

• Kind-hearted man who tries to make the world a better place, one encouraging comment at a time (Validation)

• Forensic scientist with three doctorates, a sarcastic sense of humor, a penchant for conspiracy theories and an underlying secret: that he’s a billionaire without any need for a day job (Bones)

Since graduating from the University of Southern California School of Theatre with a BFA in Acting, TJ has continued to hone his skills with teachers throughout the United States and British Columbia, including Larry Moss, Lesly Kahn, Rod Menzies, and more. His ultimate desire as an actor is to achieve a level of excellence and to be given the chance to play great roles.

Not content to wait for others to give him those roles, TJ is also driven to create them for himself.

In 2001, TJ founded Theatre Junkies Productions, a supportive community of like-minded artists of all mediums who come together to inspire and create. Originally established as a motivational tool to help himself and his friends figure out how best to build their careers as artists and actors, the Theatre Junkies group soon expanded to become an entire school, offering motivation, voice, movement, on-camera, career and acting classes.

Eventually, Theatre Junkies formed two branches, one for classes and studio work and one for live theatre in and around the Los Angeles area, including Lee Blessing’s Two Rooms at the McCadden Place Theater and Craig Lucas’s Blue Window at the Stella Adler Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. The company has since shifted its focus to primarily producing short and feature-length films.

The first major effort involved a number of short films, such as Slow, The Phone Book, and Validation. The critically acclaimed Validation, in which TJ Thyne starred, has won over 20 film festival awards including “Best Comedy Short” and “Audience Choice” and so far (as of this writing) has had over 9 million hits on YouTube. Director/writer Kurt Kuenne wrote Hugh Newman, Validation’s lead role, specifically for TJ, basing the cheery character on him because TJ is “the most positive individual [Kurt has] met in his entire life.” ***

TJ and the Theatre Junkies team continue to work on a variety of films and are always looking for new and exciting projects to produce. Screenwriters and filmmakers interested in working with TJ are welcome to send inquiries via the form on the contact page.

For years, TJ resisted auditioning for “series regular” roles out of a desire to play as wide a variety of characters as possible, but in 2005, he found the part that made him want to take that risk: Dr. Jack Hodgins, the bugs-n-slime scientist from the FOX hit television show Bones.

Portraying Hodgins as a little bit conspiracy theorist and a whole lot romantic, TJ’s enthusiastic approach to the character helps to break the sidekick stereotype of the socially inept lab geek, even managing — as PopGurls.com stated in a 2006 interview — to make “science a little bit sexy.”

Currently, Thyne continues to portray Jack Hodgins, and pursues film projects in his off-season time. He recently took on independent films: The Pardon, with Jaime King; and Ball Don’t Lie, with Rosanna Arquette and Ludacris. Another challenging project, Shuffle, is Theatre Junkies’ first full-length feature presentation, an independent film about a man named Lovell who begins to experience his life out of order. The film — a Twilight Zone-meets-Frank Capra kind of tale — features the Theatre Junkies players and some very familiar faces to the TV world, including Bones stars Tamara Taylor, Patricia Belcher, and our very own TJ Thyne.

No matter what the role, TJ is dedicated to uncovering the intricacies of the characters he plays, often having to tape or rubberband his scripts together because they’re so well worn from reading and analyzing. Whether for stage or screen, the medium doesn’t matter: “Acting is acting, is acting, is acting,” he says. It’s an opportunity for him to be a storyteller.

*TheTVAddict.com, November 6, 2007.
**PopGurls.com, December 6, 2006.
***NiceGirlsTV.com, April 2, 2009.

TJ Thyne’s biography written by Sherry L. Sink