Mayhem, we’ve been told by our television screens for over a decade, is to be avoided. It comes in many forms, but mostly it looks a lot like Dean Winters, the actor and stunt performer who’s been representing Allstate in the wildly popular series of ads since 2010.
Winters is known for plenty of things, with a list of credits stretching back to 1995. His breakout performance was arguably on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, playing Detective Brian Cassidy during the show’s debut season. After calling it a day in season one, the character made a surprise return at the tail end of season 13, sticking around for varying tenures across the next seven years.
Other high-profile roles for Winters included a series regular gig on Oz, playing Ryan O’Reily in all 56 brutal episodes of the HBO prison drama, and as Sarah Connor’s ex, Charlie, on the short lived Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Meanwhile, Winters really found his footing in the first season of 30 Rock, back when it was still quietly becoming the funniest sitcom of a generation. There, he played series protagonist Liz Lemon’s on-again off-again dirtbag boyfriend, Dennis Duffy, the source of some of the show’s most profound sound bites of wisdom. “Technology is cyclical.” “Let me tell you about 20 year olds: Half of them are 16.” “What was the one mistake those people in Denver made? There was no kid in the balloon.” The series may have ended a decade ago, but it’s hard not to go back for Dennis Duffy. We’ll always come back.