Made of Mettle

HE’S A BADASS WITH A HEART OF gold,” says Robert Patrick of his Scorpion alter ego, the fearless but hopelessly paternal federal agent Cabe Gallo. He’s a handler of Team Scorpion, a crew of supergeniuses now in their third hit season of deploying brains, banter and gargantuan action to outfox the baddest of the planet’s bad.

Renowned for his tough guys (CBS’s , ’s ), not to mention cinema’s greatest villain (the T-1000 cyborg), the Georgia-born Patrick, 58, is a Harley-Davidson-addicted alpha dog with a voice that puts gravel to shame. But this is no delusional hound: “As tough as I sometimes think I am, I ain’t that tough—I’m just an actor, for God’s sake!”