Chris O'Donnell

Christopher Eugene O'Donnell was born on June 26, 1970, in Winnetka, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. He is the youngest of seven children — four sisters and two brothers — born to Julie Ann Rohs von Brecht and William Charles O'Donnell Sr., who served as general manager of WBBM-AM. Of German and Irish descent, O'Donnell was raised in a Catholic household and attended Catholic schools, graduating from Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois in 1988. He went on to Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing in 1992. His comfort in front of cameras developed early: he began modeling at age 13 and appeared in television commercials throughout his teenage years, including advertisements for Cap'n Crunch cereal, Fruit Roll-Ups, and McDonald's, the last of which featured NBA player Michael Jordan. A television appearance on the series Jack and Mike in 1986 marked one of his earliest on-screen credits.

O'Donnell made his film debut in the comedy-drama Men Don't Leave (1990), starring Jessica Lange. Supporting roles followed in Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) and School Ties (1992) before his breakout performance alongside Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman (1992). That role earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture — won that year by Gene Hackman for Unforgiven — as well as a Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actor. He was also named one of twelve Promising New Actors of 1992 in John Willis's Screen World, Vol. 44. He reunited with Jessica Lange in Blue Sky (1994) and subsequently starred in Circle of Friends (1995) with Minnie Driver, Mad Love (1995) with Drew Barrymore, and In Love and War (1996) with Sandra Bullock, in which he portrayed writer Ernest Hemingway.

O'Donnell gained widespread mainstream recognition playing Dick Grayson/Robin in the DC Comics superhero films Batman Forever (1995) and Batman & Robin (1997). Casting for the Robin role in Batman Forever had reportedly included Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jude Law, Ewan McGregor, and others before the field narrowed to O'Donnell and DiCaprio, with O'Donnell ultimately selected. He also starred in The Three Musketeers (1993) and The Chamber (1996), the latter based on the John Grisham novel of the same name. O'Donnell later acknowledged that Batman & Robin did not turn out as he had hoped, and he declined the role of Agent J in Men in Black (1997), citing its similarity to his Batman work; that part went to Will Smith. Following the moderately successful Cookie's Fortune (1999) and The Bachelor (1999), he returned to box-office prominence with the action film Vertical Limit (2000).

In 2002, O'Donnell brought his career to the Broadway stage, appearing in The Man Who Had All the Luck and in Short Talks on the Universe. After a four-year absence from film, he returned in 2004 with Kinsey and made a guest appearance that same year on the television series Two and a Half Men. A lead role in the Fox Network series Head Cases (2005) was short-lived — the show was the first of the fall 2005 season to be canceled after only two episodes aired. He was subsequently cast as veterinarian Finn Dandridge on ABC's Grey's Anatomy, and took on the role of CIA case officer Jack McAuliffe in the TNT miniseries The Company (2007), portraying a character who evolves from a Yale-educated idealist into a post-Cold War cynic. His film work continued with Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (2008), in which he played Jack Kittredge, the titular character's father, and Max Payne (2008), in which he appeared as Jason Colvin.

From 2009 to 2023, O'Donnell starred as G. Callen, an NCIS Special Agent in Charge of the Office of Special Projects Team in Los Angeles, across all fourteen seasons of the CBS procedural series NCIS: Los Angeles, a spin-off of NCIS. He also appeared in the 2010 spy comedy Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. Beginning in 2025, O'Donnell holds a main role as Don Hart on the ABC series 9-1-1: Nashville. In his personal life, he married Caroline Fentress in April 1997 at St. Patrick Church in Washington, D.C.; they have five children together.