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Anthony Carrigan
Of all the new faces that Bill & Ted Face the Music introduced, Anthony Carrigan as Dennis Caleb McCoy might just be the most excellent.
In case you hadn’t heard, there’s a third Bill & Ted movie, which released on-demand today. Your favorite probably-stoners (no matter what Keanu Reeves might say) are back, played by Reeves and Alex Winter who are now 30 years older than they were when Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure came out in 1989. These days, Bill and Ted are fathers to two 24-year-old daughters, Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine) and Thea (Samara Weaving). They’re also washed-up has-beens who still haven’t written the song that will reunite the universe. For that reason, the new great leader—now played by Emmy-winning actor Holland Taylor—decides the best course of action is to kill the wannabe rockstars. (Shh, don’t question the logic—this is a Bill & Ted movie!)
She sends one of her minions, a robot named Dennis Caleb McCoy, to kill them.
Who plays Dennis Caleb McCoy in Bill and Ted Face the Music?
Didn’t you read the headline and lede of this article? Dennis Caleb McCoy is played by none other than Anthony Carrigan, best known as the Chechen mobster NoHo Hank in HBO’s Barry, a role which earned him an Emmy nomination. You’d think that NoHo Hank and a robot sent to murder Bill and Ted might share certain aggressive personality traits, but in fact, they have more in common their tendency to be emotionally insecure.
Like in Barry, Carrigan expertly finds humor in the juxtaposition of a gentle, but deadly, killing machine. Even with the voice distortion, Carrigan makes Dennis Caleb McCoy vulnerable—like when he feels horribly guilty for murdering Bill and Ted’s family, and awkwardly admits, “I… lasered your daughters.”
After that, McCoy drops the scary robot voice and just becomes full-on Carrigan doing his insecure comedy thing, like asking Death if he can “rock out” on the tambourine.
It’s delightful, as is the rest of the film, which includes a few other fun cameos, including Kid Cudi playing himself, and apparently the only person who understands the complex quantum physics of time-travel. If you want to forget about the world for 90 minutes and let Dennis Caleb McCoy make you laugh, the cost of renting Bill & Ted Face the Music on demand is well worth it.
