Before They Were Stars: David Strathairn in “The Brother From Another Planet”

To celebrate David Strathairn’s birthday today, here’s a clip from one of his earliest and most bizarre roles. Strathairn made his mark by frequently collaborating with director John Sayles and has appeared in seven of his films. Sayles’ most unusual movie has to be the low-budget 1984 sci-fi comedy, The Brother From Another Planet, where Joe Morton plays an escaped alien slave from another planet who arrives in New York and blends in because he just happens to resemble a black man. Strathairn and Sayles eventually pop up as the “Men in Black”, but instead of being government agents trying to stop the alien, they actually turn out to be aliens themselves and attempt to take the creature home.