Fisher Stevens

Fisher Stevens, born Stephen Fisher on November 27, 1963, in Chicago, Illinois, is an American actor, director, producer, and writer whose career spans stage, film, and television. The son of Sally and Norman Fisher, he grew up in the Chicago area, living in Hyde Park, Highland Park, and Evanston before relocating to New York with his mother following his parents' divorce when he was thirteen. At sixteen he landed his first film role in the horror film The Burning. After completing one year at New York University, he chose to pursue acting full time. Upon joining the Screen Actors Guild, he adopted the professional name Fisher Stevens because the Guild already had multiple members registered under his birth name, Steven Fisher.

Stevens made his Broadway debut in 1982 in the production of Torch Song Trilogy, where he played David Beckoff, the adopted son of the gay protagonist Arnold Beckoff, a role originated by the show's writer Harvey Fierstein. He subsequently took over the starring role of Eugene Jerome in Brighton Beach Memoirs, succeeding Matthew Broderick in that production. In 1994, he played Jigger Craigin in the Lincoln Center revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel. His Broadway work continued into the 2000s, including participation in The 24 Hour Plays in 2004, and his Broadway career as a performer extended through 2009. Across his career he has acted in and directed more than fifty stage productions. In 1986, Stevens co-founded the Naked Angels Theater Company alongside Rob Morrow, Nicole Burdette, Pippin Parker, Charles Landry, Nancy Travis, and Ned Eisenberg. In June 2010, he made his major theatrical directing debut with John Leguizamo's one-man show Ghetto Klown, which ran on Broadway from March to July 2011. Stevens and Leguizamo had previously appeared together in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at The Public Theater, where Stevens played Demetrius, roughly two decades earlier.

On screen, Stevens is perhaps most widely recognized for portraying the Indian robotics scientist Ben Jabituya in Short Circuit (1986) and Ben Jahveri in Short Circuit 2 (1988). His film credits include Reversal of Fortune (1990), Bob Roberts (1992), Hackers (1995), in which he played Eugene "The Plague" Belford, Anything Else (2003), and Hail, Caesar! (2016). He has appeared in four films directed by Wes Anderson: The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Isle of Dogs (2018), The French Dispatch (2021), and Asteroid City (2023). In television, he portrayed Chuck Fishman in the CBS series Early Edition from 1996 to 2000, Marvin Gerard on NBC's The Blacklist from 2015 to 2022, Gabriel Kovac in CBS's The Good Fight from 2017 to 2020, and Hugo Baker in the HBO drama Succession from 2019 to 2023. Additional television appearances include Columbo, Frasier, Friends, Law and Order, Damages, The Mentalist, Lost, and two episodes of Numb3rs.

As a documentary filmmaker, Stevens co-founded Greene Street Films, a production company based in Tribeca, New York City, in 1996, and later co-founded Insurgent Media with Andrew Karsch and Erik H. Gordon in 2010. He directed the documentaries Crazy Love (2007) and Before the Flood (2016). In 2010, Stevens and director Louie Psihoyos received the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 82nd Academy Awards for co-producing The Cove (2009). A PBS documentary, Tales From a Ghetto Klown, which prominently features Stevens and chronicles the development of Leguizamo's stage show, debuted on July 13, 2012. In 2003, Stevens performed as Edgar Allan Poe on Lou Reed's album The Raven. He is also a harmonica player.

Stevens grew up in the Chicago area and describes himself as a white Jewish kid from Chicago. He dated actress Michelle Pfeiffer from 1989 to 1992. He later married his longtime filmmaking partner and producer Alexis Bloom in a private ceremony in 2017; the couple have two children. Stevens is a survivor of Hodgkin lymphoma.