Peter Greene, the character actor who became a staple of ’90s cinema with his unforgettable villain roles in “Pulp Fiction” and “The Mask”, was found dead in his Lower East Side apartment on Friday. He was 60 years old.
The news was confirmed by Greene’s longtime manager, Gregg Edwards, who spoke to multiple outlets following the discovery. Authorities arrived at Greene’s Clinton Street apartment around 3:25 p.m. after neighbors reported hearing Christmas music playing continuously for over 24 hours, prompting a wellness check. The NYPD has stated that no foul play is suspected, though the official cause of death remains pending determination by the medical examiner.
A master of playing the bad guy
For fans of genre cinema, Greene’s face was instantly recognizable even if his name wasn’t always front and center. His breakthrough came with the 1994 double punch of playing Zed, the sadistic security guard in Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction,” and Dorian Tyrell, the main antagonist opposite Jim Carrey in “The Mask.” These roles cemented his reputation as someone who could make audiences genuinely uncomfortable with his intensity.
But Greene’s range extended far beyond mainstream blockbusters. He earned critical acclaim for his haunting performance as a schizophrenic man in the 1993 indie film “Clean, Shaven,” which screened at Cannes. He also delivered memorable turns in “The Usual Suspects,” “Training Day,” and more recently appeared in the John Wick spinoff series “The Continental” in 2023.
“Nobody played a bad guy better than Peter,” Edwards told NBC News, adding that Greene possessed “a gentle side that most people never saw, and a heart as big as gold.”
The New Jersey native had remained active in the industry right up until his death. He was set to begin production on an independent thriller called “Mascots” alongside Mickey Rourke in January and was narrating a documentary about USAID withdrawal, a cause he was passionate about.
Greene is survived by a brother and a sister. His passing marks the loss of one of cinema’s most compelling character actors, someone whose villainous roles became cultural touchstones for a generation of film fans.
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