Carel Struycken makes improbable figures feel settled in their surroundings, often with scarcely a line. We value the restraint, especially in The Addams Family: the limitation is how often casting asks him to supply little beyond his presence.
Fi1m perspective
Lurch is quite at home among the Addamses. Carel Struycken's physical presence helps Barry Sonnenfeld's The Addams Family (1991) make its ghoulish household seem settled and ordinary. We warmed to the way the cast treat macabre conversation as routine family business. Anjelica Huston, Raúl Juliá and Christina Ricci are the principal reasons to watch, but Struycken fits beside them without insisting on a joke of his own. The plotting is laboured and the mischief rather safe; a supporting actor cannot be expected to repair either.
His television work had already found uses for that otherworldly presence, with Mr. Homn, the valet in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), and the Giant in Twin Peaks (1990). David Lynch gives his strangeness a mystical purpose, and we find him particularly effective there. Returning as Lurch in Addams Family Values (1993) confirmed how readily he could become a fixture in a comic ensemble.
In Men in Black (1997), Sonnenfeld gives him a smaller opportunity as an Arquillian. It is a memorable alien part, but Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith do the essential work, and the film's briskness rests on their partnership. Struycken adds to the pleasure of its alien company without being asked to carry the comedy. We prefer the film to The Addams Family, even with its thin story, but it tells us less about him as an actor.
That is the reservation about a career so often confined to giants, monsters and near-silent figures. Later horror work, including the Moonlight Man in Gerald's Game (2017), continued to draw on his unusual presence. The casting can be narrow, but he is good at making such figures belong in the films around them, and that is a skill worth noticing. Start with The Addams Family, provided its laboured plotting will not spoil the pleasure of the household.
Biography
Carel Struycken is a Dutch actor. He was born on 30 July 1948 in The Hague and moved with his family to Curaçao at the age of four. He later returned to the Netherlands, studied directing at the film school in Amsterdam and attended the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.
Struycken is known for his roles as Lurch in The Addams Family (1991), Addams Family Values (1993) and Addams Family Reunion (1998), the Giant (also credited as the Fireman) in Twin Peaks (1990–1991, 2017), Mr Homn in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1992), and the Arquillian in Men in Black (1997). He has also appeared in The Witches of Eastwick (1987), Gerald's Game (2017) and Doctor Sleep (2019). His height of 2.13 m (7 ft) is due to acromegaly. In addition to acting, he works as a photographer.
