Michael Kopsa, a Canadian actor whose roles on hits and cult-favorites like The X-Files, Highlander, Smallville and Stargate SG-1 made him an immediately recognizable TV presence, died Sunday, Oct. 23, of complications from a brain tumor. He was 66.
His death was announced on Twitter by his ex-wife, actor Lucia Frangione.
“The great Michael Kopsa, my dear friend and the father of my child, Nora, passed away Oct. 23, 2022, of a brain tumor,” she wrote yesterday. “He was an incredible stage and screen actor, voice actor, carpenter, musician and painter. Most importantly, he was a loving and richly present father.”
A Toronto native, Kopsa studied acting at New York’s Circle in the Square Theater School for four years in the mid-1980s. He subsequently returned to Canada to attend the University of Toronto. Throughout his career he would perform in series filmed or made in Toronto or Vancouver.
Among his earliest credits were voiceover work for such animated series as Mobile Suit Gundam and small in-person roles on the 1988 Mr. T series T and T.
By the mid-’90s he had booked roles on The Commish, Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years, Highlander, and The X-Files. Subsequent credits include roles on Poltergeist: The Legacy, The Outer Limits, Beggars and Choosers, and, in the 2000s, Action Man and Galaxy Angel.
He recurred in two separate roles on Stargate SG-1, portraying a TV news anchor and General Kerrigan.
He voiced a couple roles on Dragon Ball Z, and, in 2001’s X-Men: Evolution, he voiced the character of Dr. Hank McCoy. In 2006 and 2007, he played Ray Ellis on Falcon Beach, and he played Captain Windmark in 2012’s Fringe, among many, many other roles.