Eric McCormack

Eric James McCormack, born April 18, 1963, in Toronto, Ontario, is a Canadian and American actor whose career spans stage, film, and television. The eldest of three siblings, he grew up in Toronto as the son of Doris, a homemaker, and James Keith McCormack, a financial analyst for an oil company. Shy as a child and uninvolved in sports, McCormack found his footing in theatre at an early age. He attended Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate Institute in Scarborough, Ontario, where his classmates included Mike Myers and David Furnish, and performed in school productions of Godspell and Pippin. It was during Godspell that he resolved to pursue acting professionally. After graduating in 1982, he enrolled at Ryerson University School of Theatre in Toronto but left in 1985, several months before completing his degree, to join the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, where he spent five seasons performing in productions including A Midsummer Night's Dream, Henry V, Murder in the Cathedral, and Three Sisters. He subsequently performed with the Manitoba Theatre Centre in Burn This and with Toronto's Royal Alexandra Theatre in Biloxi Blues.

McCormack made his Canadian television debut in the 1986 film The Boys from Syracuse and his American television debut in a 1991 episode of the CBS crime series Top Cops. His early screen work included the 1992 theatrical films The Lost World and its sequel Return to the Lost World, both based on Arthur Conan Doyle's novel. By 1993 he had landed a recurring role as a detective on the crime drama Street Justice and appeared in the television film Double, Double, Toil and Trouble. He played Colonel Francis Clay Mosby across 42 episodes of the Western series Lonesome Dove: The Series, which was later retitled Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years. Additional television appearances during this period included Townies, Veronica's Closet, and Ally McBeal, and he portrayed Mel Ferrer in the 2000 ABC television film The Audrey Hepburn Story.

His breakthrough came in September 1998 when Will & Grace premiered on NBC, with McCormack starring as gay lawyer Will Truman opposite Debra Messing. The show debuted to nearly 8.6 million viewers and quickly built a devoted audience. His performance earned him four Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in 2000, 2001, 2003, and 2005, with a win in 2001, as well as five Golden Globe Award nominations. The series concluded in 2006, after which McCormack starred in the New York stage production of Some Girl(s).

His Broadway career began during the 2001 season when he stepped in to replace Craig Bierko as Professor Harold Hill in Susan Stroman's revival of The Music Man. He subsequently appeared on Broadway in The Play What I Wrote and The Best Man, and in 2023 performed in The Cottage. The database also credits him with appearing in The Music Master and starring in The Cottage in the Air.

Beyond Will & Grace, McCormack's television work has been extensive. He starred in the 2008 miniseries The Andromeda Strain, returned to series television in 2009 with the TNT drama Trust Me, and held a recurring role in season five of The New Adventures of Old Christine as a therapist and love interest for Julia Louis-Dreyfus's character. He voiced the character Lucky on The Hub's animated series Pound Puppies and starred for three seasons as Dr. Daniel Pierce in the TNT crime drama Perception. From 2016 onward he played Grant MacLaren in Netflix's science-fiction series Travelers, and in 2021 he joined the cast of Departure.

On film, McCormack appeared in the 1998 comedy Holy Man and starred in the 1999 comedy Free Enterprise alongside Rafer Weigel, playing a filmmaker obsessed with William Shatner and Star Trek. He starred in the 2005 film The Sisters and appeared in the 2009 science-fiction film Alien Trespass.