Gil Bellows (born June 28, 1967) is a Canadian actor, screenwriter, and director. He is best known for the roles of Tommy Williams in the 1994 movie The Shawshank Redemption, Billy Thomas in the
Fox television series Ally McBeal (1997–2002), and
CIA agent Matt Callan in the
CBS television series The Agency (2001–2003). In 2016–2017, he was a regular cast member in the
USA Network series Eyewitness.
In 2007, he completed filming for Kill Kill Faster Faster, which is a contemporary film noir inspired by the critically acclaimed novel of the same name by
Joel Rose.
In 2010, Bellows had a recurring role in FlashForward as Timothy, a window-washer who becomes a
born-again Christian and
evangelist after a near-death experience.[4] Bellows also co-starred in the movie Unthinkable that same year.
In 2014 Bellows starred with
Tricia Helfer in the
Syfy miniseries
Ascension, a retro
space opera / murder mystery about the 600-person crew of the USS Ascension, an Orion-class nuclear pulse propulsion spaceship, on its secret 100-year journey to
Proxima Centauri, having been launched in 1963 by
President Kennedy. Bellows played Harris Enzmann, the son of the founder of the Ascension project, who oversees its progress from a secret facility on Earth.
On October 16, 2016, Bellows debuted as a cast regular in
USA Network's new, 10-episode, straight-to-series police drama, Eyewitness. He plays Gabe Caldwell, a veterinarian and the husband of Sheriff Helen Torrance (series lead
Julianne Nicholson). The sheriff is trying to solve what appears to be a random triple-murder in a turkey farmer's home. But as the series begins to unfold, she is unaware that the farmer's teenage son and his male friend—the latter of whom also happens to be Gabe and Helen's foster son; at first, unbeknownst to either parent—had been secretly exploring new feelings for each other just prior to the carnage, witnessed the murders. The killer is still at large, is someone she wouldn't normally suspect, and is determined to permanently silence the witness he saw hiding. Meanwhile, off the clock and at home, Caldwell and Torrance seem to enjoy a genuinely happy marriage. The series, although set in mainly in the
Hudson River Valley, was actually filmed in
Parry Sound, Ontario, Canada.