Ben McKenzie

Benjamin McKenzie Schenkkan was born on September 12, 1978, in Austin, Texas. He is one of three sons of Frances Schenkkan, a poet, and Pete Schenkkan, an attorney. His middle name, McKenzie, derives from his paternal grandmother's maiden name, and he adopted it as his stage name to avoid confusion with actor Ben Shenkman. His grandfather, Robert F. Schenkkan, was a professor at the University of Texas at Austin and contributed to the passage of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. McKenzie is a nephew of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan and a second cousin of actress Sarah Drew. He is also the brother-in-law of photojournalist Scout Tufankjian.

McKenzie attended St. Andrew's Episcopal School for middle school, where he and future Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees were friends and flag football teammates. He later attended Stephen F. Austin High School, playing wide receiver and defensive back on the football team. From 1997 to 2001, he studied at the University of Virginia, the alma mater of both his father and paternal grandfather, graduating with an undergraduate degree in foreign affairs and economics.

After relocating to New York City following his 2001 graduation, McKenzie worked part-time jobs while performing in off-off-Broadway productions and participating in summer stock theater and the Williamstown Theatre Festival. He subsequently moved to Los Angeles, where he was cast as Ryan Atwood on the Fox teen drama The O.C., which premiered on August 5, 2003. The role earned him Teen Choice Award nominations for "Choice Breakout TV Star – Male" and "Choice TV Chemistry," as well as wins for "Choice TV Actor – Drama/Action Adventure" and "Choice TV Actor – Drama." While working on The O.C., he made his feature film debut in the Academy Award-nominated Junebug (2005), alongside Amy Adams and Embeth Davidtz. The O.C. concluded in early 2007 after four seasons.

In 2008, McKenzie delivered a solo performance in a live-on-stage, on-film adaptation of Dalton Trumbo's 1939 novel Johnny Got His Gun, portraying Joe Bonham, a role previously played by James Cagney, Jeff Daniels, and Timothy Bottoms. The film premiered at the Paramount Theater in Austin. He then starred as rookie police officer Ben Sherman in the NBC drama Southland, which premiered on April 9, 2009. After NBC canceled the series, TNT acquired it and the show ran for five seasons before ending in 2013. During this period, McKenzie also appeared in an off-Broadway transfer of The Glass Menagerie at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles from September to October 2010.

In October 2013, McKenzie signed an exclusive talent deal with Warner Bros. Television Studios, and in February 2014 he was cast in the pilot of Gotham. The Batman prequel series premiered on Fox on September 22, 2014, with McKenzie portraying a young James "Jim" Gordon. Over five seasons and 100 episodes, he also made his directorial debut with the season three episode "These Delicate and Dark Obsessions," directed the season four episode "One of My Three Soups," and wrote the season four episode "The Demon's Head." Gotham concluded in April 2019.

Following Gotham, McKenzie appeared in a dramatic reading of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on June 24, 2019, portraying both Michael Flynn and Donald Trump Jr. in The Investigation: A Search for the Truth in Ten Acts. He had also appeared in his uncle Robert Schenkkan's 2019 work The Investigation. Additional film credits include 88 Minutes (2007), Goodbye World (2013), Some Kind of Beautiful (2014), and the real-time action thriller Line of Duty (2019), shot in Birmingham, Alabama.

McKenzie made his Broadway debut on January 23, 2020, in the Second Stage production of Grand Horizons, written by Bess Wohl, at the Hayes Theater. He played Ben, one of two sons contending with their elderly parents' divorce. The production began previews on December 23, 2019, and closed on March 1, 2020, having received a nomination for Best Play at the 2020 Tony Awards.

Outside of acting, McKenzie collaborated with journalist Jacob Silverman on a critical examination of cryptocurrency. Their book, Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud, was published in July 2023.