Jere Burns

Jere Eugene Burns II was born on October 15, 1954, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of a gown and cap manufacturer. He attended the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School, graduating in 1973, before going on to earn a degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1980. Burns came to acting relatively late during his college years, and after graduating he relocated to Manhattan, where he was cast in Don Juan at the New York Shakespeare Festival.

Burns made his television debut in 1984 in a small role on the ABC Afterschool Special episode "Mom's on Strike." He went on to accumulate recurring television roles throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, including James Fitzsimmons on Hill Street Blues and Breughel on Max Headroom. In 1988, he took on the role of Kirk Morris, a ladies' man, on the television series Dear John. Subsequent television work included the role of villainous Cade Dalton in the NBC miniseries The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw in 1991, Pete Schmidt on Bob in 1993, and Jack Farrell in Something So Right in 1996. Burns appeared as Ben Stuart in Life-Size in 2000 and as Frank Alfonse on Good Morning, Miami in 2002.

His Broadway career spanned from 2002 to 2005 and included two productions: the musical Hairspray and After the Night and the Music.

In 2010, Burns appeared in AMC's Breaking Bad as the leader of a Narcotics Anonymous group that the character Jesse Pinkman attended. He portrayed Anson Fullerton, a DIA psychiatrist and villain, in Seasons 5 and 6 of Burn Notice on USA Network from 2011 to 2012. On FX's Justified, he played Wynn Duffy, a lieutenant in the Dixie Mafia, a role that brought him recurring presence on the series. Additional television credits include Jake Abernathy on the A&E series Bates Motel in 2013, Bosco on Grey's Anatomy in 2013, Lieutenant Atkins on Angie Tribeca, Derek Ford on Psych, and Jacob Tiernan on Lucifer in 2019.

On film, Burns appeared in Hit List in 1989, Greedy in 1994, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles in 2001, and the FBI agent lead role in Otis in 2008.

Burns was first married to Melissa Keeler in 1982; the couple divorced in 1996 after fourteen years of marriage. He married actress Kathleen Kinmont in 1997, and they divorced in 1999. In 2008, he married Leslie Cohen, and they divorced in 2018. Burns has four children.