Cast and Characters (Sneakers) Sneakers (1992)
Principal Cast
Martin Bishop / Martin Brice — Robert Redford
Leader of the tiger team, a 1960s campus radical living under an assumed name since the night he stepped out for pizza and the FBI raided his dorm. Redford (in Sneakers) plays Bishop with the rumpled competence and watchful stillness he had been cultivating since Three Days of the Condor (1975) — a man who has been looking over his shoulder for so long that vigilance reads as fatigue.
"Redford is wonderful here. He's got that thing — that quality of intelligence behind the eyes — and he uses it the way a great character actor would, not the way a movie star would." — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (1992)
Donald Crease — Sidney Poitier
Ex-CIA, the team's grown-up: married, two daughters, the only member with a working family life. Poitier (in Sneakers) had not appeared in a major film for ten years; Sneakers was the role that brought him back.
"Poitier's authority is the spine of the team. When he says we are not doing this, we are not doing this." — Janet Maslin, The New York Times (1992)
Mother — Dan Aykroyd
Conspiracy theorist, electronics specialist, and the team's running joke. Aykroyd (in Sneakers) plays Mother as the man who knows the CIA killed Kennedy and is willing to explain in detail.
Cosmo — Ben Kingsley
Bishop's college roommate, presumed dead, alive and prosperous as the antagonist. Kingsley (in Sneakers) plays Cosmo with quiet courtesy and absolute conviction; the menace is in the calm.
"Kingsley is one of those actors who can suggest, simply by the way he sits in a chair, that he is the smartest person in the room." — Vincent Canby, The New York Times (1992)
Liz — Mary McDonnell
Bishop's ex-girlfriend, a music teacher recruited to help locate Cosmo. McDonnell (in Sneakers) plays Liz with the watchful warmth she had brought to Dances with Wolves (1990) — present, skeptical, willing to be drawn back in.
Carl Arbogast — River Phoenix
The team's teenage hacker. Phoenix (in Sneakers) is the comic engine of half the supporting scenes, the kid impersonating a college student, the kid charming the receptionist.
Whistler — David Strathairn
The blind phone-phreak whose ear runs the operation. Strathairn (in Sneakers) plays Whistler as a working professional whose disability is irrelevant to his job, which is exactly the choice the script asks for.
Supporting Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| James Earl Jones | Bernard Abraham (NSA) |
| Stephen Tobolowsky | Dr. Werner Brandes |
| Donal Logue | Dr. Gunter Janek |
| Timothy Busfield | Dick Gordon |
| Eddie Jones | Buddy Wallace |
| George Hearn | Gregor |