Brent Briscoe, Actor in 'Sling Blade' and 'A Simple Plan,' Dies at 56

He worked often with Billy Bob Thornton and appeared in 'Mulholland Drive' and 'Twin Peaks' for David Lynch.

Brent Briscoe, the busy character actor who appeared alongside Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade and A Simple Plan and played Det. Dave Macklay on the recently revived Twin Peaks, has died. He was 56.

Briscoe died Wednesday in Los Angeles, a friend announced on Facebook. No cause of death was immediately available.

Briscoe also had a recurring role as the diner owner J.J. on the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation and played Sheriff Cecil Coleman in Frank Darabont's The Majestic (2001).

Briscoe starred as Lou Chambers, one of the three men who come upon a crashed plane filled with cash, in Sam Raimi's A Simple Plan (1998). Earlier, he was Scooter, one of the repair shop employees who takes a liking to Thornton's character, Karl, in Sling Blade (1996). Thornton, of course, wrote and directed the acclaimed drama as well.

Briscoe and Thornton also appeared onscreen in U Turn (1997), Mr. Woodcock (2007), The Smell of Success (2009) and Jayne Mansfield's Car (2012), and he and former college roommate Mark Fauser co-wrote and acted in the 2002 romantic comedy Waking Up in Reno, starring Thornton.

A native of Moberly, Missouri, Briscoe attended Moberly High School and the University of Missouri before serving as an apprentice in 1985 at The Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre in Jupiter, Florida. His first onscreen credit came in 1990 on Reynolds' CBS sitcom, Evening Shade.

Briscoe also was a staff writer on the Linda Bloodworth-Thomason comedy and teamed with Fauser on the teleplay for The Right to Remain Silent, a 1996 movie at Showtime.

Before he was Macklay on Twin Peaks, Briscoe played another cop, Detective Domgaard, in Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001).

Briscoe's film résumé also included Milos Forman's Man on the Moon (1999), Darabont's The Green Mile (1999), Raimi's Spider-Man 2 (2004), Paul Haggis' In the Valley of Elah (2007), Jon Turteltaub's National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007) and Beneath (2013).

On television, Briscoe also showed up on Deadwood, 24, Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, Desperate Housewives, Justified, NCIS and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Survivors include his father Carl, sister Shelley and brother Kent.