Clark Gregg

Robert Clark Gregg Jr. was born on April 2, 1962, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Mary Layne (née Shine) and Robert Clark Gregg Sr., an Episcopal priest and Stanford University professor. His family moved frequently during his childhood, and by the age of 17 he had lived in seven different cities. He attended high school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where his father held a professorship at Duke University. After two years at Ohio Wesleyan University, Gregg left school and relocated to Manhattan, supporting himself through jobs that included working as a bar back, a security guard at the Guggenheim Museum, and a parking valet. He subsequently enrolled at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, studying drama and English and graduating in 1986.

Gregg was a founding member of the off-Broadway Atlantic Theater Company, established in 1983, and later served as its artistic director. His Broadway career spans 1989 to 2025 and includes appearances in A Few Good Men and Good Night, and Good Luck. In October 2010, he participated in a staged reading of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart in Los Angeles, presented on the occasion of the play's 25th anniversary and directed by Joel Grey, his then-father-in-law.

On screen, Gregg wrote the screenplay for the 2000 thriller What Lies Beneath and went on to write and direct the black comedy Choke (2008), adapted from Chuck Palahniuk's novel of the same name and starring Sam Rockwell. For that film, Gregg consulted his father, a retired religion professor and former chaplain at Stanford Memorial Church, regarding a quotation from Saint Paul's letter to the Galatians. He also wrote, produced, and directed the comedy-drama Trust Me, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 20, 2013, and received a limited United States release in June 2014.

His acting credits in film include The Adventures of Sebastian Cole (1998), One Hour Photo (2002), We Were Soldiers (2002), In Good Company (2004), When a Stranger Calls (2006), 500 Days of Summer (2009), Much Ado About Nothing (2012), The To Do List (2013), Labor Day (2013), Live by Night (2016), and Being the Ricardos (2021). On television, he portrayed FBI Special Agent Mike Casper on the NBC drama The West Wing from 2001 to 2004 and played Richard, the ex-husband of Christine Campbell, in the CBS sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine from 2006 to 2010.

Gregg became widely recognized for his portrayal of S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Phil Coulson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a role he first took on in Iron Man (2008) and reprised across multiple films including Iron Man 2 (2010), Thor (2011), The Avengers, and Captain Marvel (2019). From 2013 to 2020, he starred as Coulson in the ABC series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., alongside Ming-Na Wen and Chloe Bennet, and directed episodes in the series' fifth and sixth seasons. He also voiced the character in the animated series What If...? and in video games. His MCU involvement continued through 2024. In 2022, Gregg joined the cast of the TNT series Snowpiercer for its fourth and final season; after the network cancelled the series before the season aired, it was picked up by AMC and broadcast in 2024.

On July 21, 2001, Gregg married actress Jennifer Grey. Their daughter Stella was born on December 3, 2001. Gregg and Grey announced their separation in July 2020, and their divorce was finalized on February 16, 2021. Gregg holds a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and is a cousin of New York State government official and former New York City mayoral candidate Kathryn Garcia.