| Name doesn't ring a bell? How about Leonard Lawrence/Private
Pyle, from Full Metal Jacket? That's him.
D'Onofrio (pronounced Duh-noff-ree-o) was born in 1959 in Brooklyn,
New York.
He was basically a complete unknown (unless you count a role in Adventures
in Babysitting) when Stanley Kubrick cast him in the role of Private
Gomer Pyle in Full Metal Jacket in 1987, as the overweight and dimwitted
United States Marine Corps recruit that goes slowly insane over the course of Basic
Training.
Normally slender, D'Onofrio gained an astounding 70 pounds to fit the
role. His slow transformation from a happy-go-lucky, dim recruit
into a complete psychopath at the hands of Gunnery Sargeant Hartmann
(R. Lee Ermey), culminating in Pyle killing Hartmann and then blowing
his own brains out in the bathroom of his barracks, remains one of the most disturbing portrayals of military
life in the history of modern cinema. Picturing anyone but D'Onofrio playing Pyle is near impossible.
D'Onofrio unfortunately for many years never surpassed the success he enjoyed with
that part, although he has had small roles in scores of movies since then.
The more well-known include: Mystic Pizza, JFK, Malcolm X, The Player, Ed Wood,
Strange Days, The Thirteenth Floor, and The Cell.
In 2001, D'Onofrio was cast as the lead on a new Law & Order spinoff series, titled Law & Order: Criminal Intent. He's quite good in this role, playing Detective Robert Goren as a highly unorthodox and hard-nosed cop who gets results. dem bones informs me that D'Onofrio's character actually mentions E2 in one episode, stating that he "looked X up on Everything and couldn't find an entry". (If someone could find out for me the exact quote and episode name, I'll add it here.) | 
