Doug Jones (born May 24, 1960) is an American actor, contortionist, and mime artist. He is best known for portraying non-human creatures, usually via heavy make-up and visual effects. He has most notably collaborated with acclaimed filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, appearing in the films Mimic (1997), Hellboy (2004), Pan's Labyrinth (2006), Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), Crimson Peak (2015), and The Shape of Water (2017). Jones's other roles include Hocus Pocus (1993) and its sequel (2022), Tank Girl (1995), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (2005), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Absentia (2011), Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016), and The Bye Bye Man (2017). He has appeared in the science fiction series Falling Skies (2013–15) and del Toro's horror series The Strain (2014–16). Since 2017, he has portrayed Captain Saru in the science fiction series Star Trek: Discovery. Early life Jones was born in Indianapolis, the youngest of four brothers, and attended Bishop Chatard High School. He graduated from Ball State University, where he parlayed his background as a mime into portraying the school mascot "Charlie Cardinal." Career Jones started his career in the television and movie industry as a 1980s advertising character, "Mac Tonight." He worked as a contortionist, saying, "You'd be surprised how many times that comes into play in commercials. They'll want somebody to hold a box of Tide funny or something. I once squished into a box for a commercial for relaxed fit jeans." In 1994, he appeared in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries as Gordon Page, Jr., a young man with autism who disappeared from a treatment center in 1991. Although known mostly for his work under prosthetic makeup, such as the zombie William "Billy" Butcherson in the Walt Disney Pictures Halloween film Hocus Pocus, or the lead spy Morlock in the 2002 remake of the 1960 film The Time Machine, he has also performed without prosthetics in such films as Adaptation, Mystery Men, and Batman Returns, and indie projects such as Stefan Haves' Stalled, AntiKaiser Productions' Three Lives, Phil Donlon's A Series of Small Things, and as Cesare in David Fisher's 2005 remake of the 1920 silent classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Jones played Abe Sapien in Hellboy; the voice was performed by an uncredited David Hyde Pierce in the first film, but Jones's voice was used in the sequel. Explaining the challenge of working so often in rubber suits