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First of all, according to "Jess' Zeljko Ivanek Page," it's pronounced "Zhel-ko Eve-anek" with the "zh" sounding like the z in the word 'azure'.

Secondly, yes, there really is a "Jess' Zeljko Ivanek Page."

Thirdly, you may know Zeljko Ivanek as the scheming troll of a governor, James Devlin, on Oz, or as the slimy weasel of a lawyer that tormented Alex Kingston on ER. Or you may recognize him as Cordell, the kowtowing man servant to Mason Verger in Hannibal, or as Harrell, the vaguely weaselly but basically not that bad guy-in-the-helicopter- giving-directions who gets Tom Sizemore lost in Black Hawk Down.

The point is, if you know Zeljko Ivanek, then there's a good chance you know him as a supercilious apparatchik -- as a scheming, ambitious, amoral bureaucrat who's eager to slip a shiv, literal or otherwise, into anyone who blocks his scrambling, grasping climb to success. Or maybe you remember him from the 1983 Broadway production of Brighton Beach Memoirs.

In any case, the talented Mr. Ivanek is always up for the task. And don't get us wrong -- he does occasionally play bureaucrats, lawyers, and other assorted government suits who aren't seedy and evil. For example, he played Ed Danvers, the reasonably unslimy D.A., on Homicide: Life on the Streets. But in the roles he's best known for, he's known for seediness and evilness. And not a chaotic, out-of-control, I-am-a-destroyer- of-worlds evilness, but a thin-lipped, efficient, let's-get-this-done- and-move-on-to- the-next-item-on- the-evil-agenda evilness.

In other words, Zeljko Ivanek doesn't get to play the general; instead, he plays the general's efficient aide who explains the details of the plan after the general's laid out the stakes. And then, later, he risks the lives of decent men with his refusal to bend the rules and let these men do their jobs, dammit! Or he just plain fucks someone over, although that happens more often when he's playing a D.A.