Terry Crews discovered his special gift way back in high school.
No, we're not talking about football, which he grew up playing and which took him to Western Michigan University and a seven-year career in the NFL as a defensive end. It was something else - something that's served him well as he jumped into acting.
But when he isn't laughing, he can scare you half to death with just a scowl.
"I realised I could really flip it on people. All I do is furrow my brow and people get worried. I have to tell a joke to let 'em know everything's cool. It became my thing.
"I learned that could be a cool way for a big guy like me to be."
Crews (44) is the big, scary dude who turns up, often as not, in comic roles. He was the scary but hen-pecked dad in Everybody Hates Chris, an assortment of bouncers, bullies and jocks in films from Friday After Next to The Longest Yard. If you saw Bridesmaids, you almost certainly laughed at Crews, as a fitness bootcamp instructor who castigates the leading ladies for spying on his class without paying for it.
"He can look scary, but he's really a total sweetheart," says Dax Shepard, who worked with Crews in Idiocracy and who cast Crews in his upcoming action comedy, Hit & Run. Crews had to bow out of that film at the last minute, but Shepard knew better than to make an issue of it.
"I mean, look at him!"
"I call myself 'The Amusement Park'," Crews says.
"The Amusement Park is funny and scary, all at once."
Crews is one of the stars of Expendables 2, holding his brawny own with the likes of Stallone and Statham, Arnold and Bruce.
"Stallone put me in the company of the best, biggest and baddest brothers in the world. I'm just a kid from Flint who grew up watching these guys' movies. And I get to act with them?
"And then he gives me the best character name ever put in an action movie - Hale Caesar! Best name I've ever heard. Well, next to Hellraiser!"
When his NFL career ended and he tried his hand at acting, Crews realised he had two assets: The scary-funny thing, which he modelled on one of his favourite actors. ("I look at Christopher Walken. He's always funny and scary at the same time. He taught me that's a great place to be.")And to go along with the persona, Crews had the build.
He's a veritable man-mountain.
"You don't get a body like this in a gym. My body comes from hitting people at 20 miles an hour. I know a lot of people try to get there other ways. But you can't fake it. This body comes from collisions, 20 years of collisions ... Every lump on my head, every scar. I earned it."
Football taught him to "work on a team, play your role, know where you fit in".
Caesar's role among the Expendables?
"He's Elmo with a gun! He's all emotional. When Caesar's happy, everybody's laughing. When Caesar's mad or sad, watch out!"
The knowing-your-role thing even came in handy with another piece of work that Crews signed on for, the new US reality series Stars Earn Stripes.
A guy who has played at being tough, rough and ready had to prove it with other actors, athletes and reality TV stars as they take on tasks with the military and assorted groups of first responders.
"Nothing prepared me for that. Acting is one thing. You pick up the gun, point it off camera. You're not aiming. They cut, and you hand the gun off [to the armourer] and walk away.
"But real soldiers? Snipers? Swat team members? Police? The type of danger they deal with and handle with level-headedness and coolness, all these high-pressure situations that they're in yet they have to maintain their cool - I had to get some of that. Biggest challenge of my life."
The muscle
The Expendables was such a surprise hit that even more grizzled action heroes signed up for the sequel. Here's a quick guide to who's who in the cast.
The man who spearheaded the first '80s reunion is back, of course, though not in the director's chair.
That job goes to Simon West, an old hand from blow-'em-ups such as Con Air, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and last year's Charles Bronson remake, The Mechanic.
The Swedish behemoth, typecast throughout the Cold War as a Russian, turned in a surprisingly good performance in the first Expendables as a mercenary with a drug problem. Good thing his character sprang back to life at the end, because he's in the sequel.
Perhaps regretting his decision to pass on the first film, the Muscles from Brussels shows up in the sequel. He plays a villain whose name, in case you were confused, is Vilain.
Another newcomer, the family-friendly Norris, briefly caused panic by suggesting that The Expendables 2 would be low on profanity and rated a mild PG at his behest.
Stallone initially confirmed the rating, but insisted the film would be action-packed; it's now rated R. Will the characters watch their mouths while they murder everyone?
Best known as Gale in The Hunger Games, Hemsworth plays Bill "The Kid" Timmons, an expert sniper. At 22, he's probably making cast members who are 40-something, such as Jason Statham, Jet Li and Terry Crews, feel pretty creaky.
Last time, he and Bruce Willis showed up just enough to get their names on the poster, but now they're toting guns and diving into the action. For Schwarzenegger, who's been planning an acting comeback, The Expendables 2 could be a screen test of sorts.
Mickey Rourke
Just kidding! The actor who played Tool in the first film dropped out of the sequel to do a movie called Seven Psychopaths. Turns out he's not doing that one, either.
