Relax, Jonesy, you sold me.

Those words were spoken by Capt. Bart Mancuso to Seaman Jones, his sonar technician, in 1990's "The Hunt for Red October." But I'm also saying them to you, now, because you're right: That was Courtney B. Vance playing Jones, 26 years before he was delivering his own pithy quotations as real-life hotshot lawyer Johnnie Cochran in "American Crime Story."

If Vance has a "type" -- a role he's frequently cast in -- it's people who are incredibly good at their jobs. Love him or hate him, Cochran's contribution to O.J. Simpson's acquittal was a pretty impressive bit of lawyering. And as Seaman Jones, Vance is the one who figures out how to track the supposedly untrackable Red October.

There are other instances, too. One of his other most notable roles was in 2015's "Terminator Genisys," playing Miles Dyson, the computer programmer who creates the artificial intelligence system that eventually takes over the world. That's not a bad day's work, if you like that sort of thing.

There's no word on whether this trend will continue in his next high-profile gig, the reboot of "The Mummy," opposite Tom Cruise. Cruise will play a special forces soldier who presumably is the one to square off against the ancient Egyptian monster, but Vance's role has yet to be announced.

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