From the time of his onscreen debut in the early '90s, Ari Cohen came to specialize in portrayals of everymen, frequently (though not always) nice guy figures with warm and sincere personas; throughout his career, Cohen maintained a particularly strong presence in telemovies. He began his acting tenure on an unusual and uncharacteristic note, with a turn in Canadian avant-garde filmmaker Guy Maddin's 1990 Archangel, then essayed a portrayal of Saturday Night Live progenitor Lorne Michaels in the telemovie It's Always Something: The Gilda Radner Story (2002), and joined Jason Alexander for the heartwarming holiday prime-time movie The Man Who Saved Christmas (2002). In 2007, Cohen played the emotionally abusive and apathetic father of a troubled young woman (Ellen Page) in Bruce McDonald's critically acclaimed drama The Tracey Fragments.