Jackie Earle Haley Bad News Bears
Jackie Earle Haley (born July 14, 1961, Northridge, California) played Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears (1976) — the juvenile-delinquent ringer whose arm comes over the outfield fence and reorients Buttermaker's coaching project around win-at-all-costs substitution.
Kelly Leak is the coolest twelve-year-old in California
Haley plays Kelly as the most adult presence on the field besides Amanda — smoking, riding a motorcycle into the park, trafficking with high-school girls, indifferent to adult authority. The role is mostly built from posture, line-reading economy, and the choice never to soften. Kelly's recruitment to the Bears is the bounded scene where Buttermaker's defensive substitution becomes offensive substitution, and Haley's performance has to make Kelly's authority as a player legible enough that Buttermaker's reversal — "Why screw around, guys? If the guy can play ball, he can play ball" — is plausible inside one beat.
Pauline Kael singled out the performance:
"Jackie Earle Haley, as the leather-jacketed delinquent Kelly Leak, has the kind of laconic charm that ought to make him a star." — Pauline Kael, The New Yorker (1976)
Haley had been working since age seven
Jackie Earle Haley made his screen debut at age seven and was working steadily through the early 1970s — TV commercials, guest spots, and supporting roles on shows like The Partridge Family. He had a substantial role in The Day of the Locust (1975), John Schlesinger's adaptation of Nathanael West's Hollywood novel, the year before The Bad News Bears. (wikipedia, imdb)
He was the most experienced of the kid actors on The Bad News Bears — he and Alfred Lutter were the only two with substantial professional credits before the production. Most of the other Bears were near-amateurs cast off open calls.
He carried the sequels
Haley returned for both Bad News Bears sequels. The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977) brought him and Chris Barnes (Tanner) back from the original team and made Kelly the central character — the Bears travel to the Houston Astrodome for an exhibition game. The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978) brought back Haley alone and replaced Matthau with Tony Curtis. The films were modestly successful but neither approached the original's commercial or critical standing. See Critical Reception and Legacy (The Bad News Bears).
His career stalled, then restarted twenty-five years later
Haley followed The Bad News Bears with Damnation Alley (1977) and Breaking Away (1979), Peter Yates's Indianapolis cycling film, where he played Moocher to Dennis Quaid's Mike. Through the 1980s the work thinned. By the early 1990s Haley had effectively stopped acting and was working as a limousine driver and a security guard in San Antonio, Texas.
The comeback arrived through Steve Zaillian. In 2006 Zaillian cast him in All the King's Men (2006); the same year, Todd Field cast him as Ronnie McGorvey, a paroled sex offender, in Little Children (2006), opposite Kate Winslet. The Ronnie performance earned Haley an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor at age forty-five — twenty-eight years after Kelly Leak. (wikipedia)
Haley's career in two acts
| Year | Film | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1975 | The Day of the Locust | Schlesinger; supporting role |
| 1976 | The Bad News Bears | Kelly Leak |
| 1977 | The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training | Sequel; Kelly central |
| 1978 | The Bad News Bears Go to Japan | Sequel; Kelly central |
| 1979 | Breaking Away | Yates; Moocher |
| 1980s–90s | (largely absent) | Worked as limousine driver, security guard |
| 2006 | All the King's Men | Comeback role |
| 2006 | Little Children | Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination |
| 2009 | Watchmen | Rorschach |
| 2010 | A Nightmare on Elm Street (remake) | Freddy Krueger |
| 2010 | Shutter Island | Scorsese |
| 2012 | Lincoln | Spielberg |
| 2017–19 | The Tick (TV) | The Terror |
The career arc — child star, twenty-five-year disappearance, Oscar-nominated comeback — is one of the more unusual in modern American film.