Joe Morton

Joseph Thomas Morton Jr., born October 18, 1947, in Harlem, New York City, is an American actor whose career spans stage, television, and film. His father, Joseph Thomas Morton Sr., served as a U.S. Army intelligence officer, and his mother, Evelyn, worked as a secretary. Because of his father's military career, Morton spent portions of his childhood in West Germany and Okinawa. His father died when Morton was ten years old. Raised Catholic, Morton attended a Catholic military school, served as an altar boy, and at one point considered entering the priesthood. He graduated from Andrew Jackson High School and went on to study drama at Hofstra University.

Morton's Broadway career began in 1971 with Two Gentlemen of Verona, and he remained active on Broadway through 1998. His early stage work also included productions such as Hair and Salvation. Among his Broadway credits are Raisin, Honky Tonk Nights, Oh, Brother!, and Tricks. His performance in Raisin, the 1973 musical, earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical as well as a Theatre World Award in 1974. He made his West End debut in 2004 in David Hare's play Stuff Happens, in which he portrayed Colin Powell. In 2002 he appeared on the London stage in Art, and in 2016 he portrayed activist and comedian Dick Gregory in Turn Me Loose at the Westside Theatre in Manhattan.

Morton has appeared in more than 70 films. He collaborated three times with director John Sayles, appearing in The Brother from Another Planet (1984), City of Hope (1991), and Lone Star (1996). His other film credits include ...And Justice for All (1979), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), in which he played Dr. Miles Bennett Dyson, Of Mice and Men (1992), Speed (1994), in which he played Police Lieutenant Herb "Mac" McMahon, Apt Pupil (1998), Blues Brothers 2000 (1998), What Lies Beneath (2000), Ali (2001), Paycheck (2003), Stealth (2005), and American Gangster (2007). Morton portrayed Dr. Silas Stone, father of Victor Stone/Cyborg, in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), reprising the role in Justice League (2017) and more extensively in Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021). A car accident that occurred a few years before the filming of Terminator 2 left Morton with a punctured lung, and after he demonstrated the injury's effects to director James Cameron, Cameron incorporated the detail into the film.

Morton's television work has been equally extensive. He starred in the Sanford and Son spin-off Grady from 1975 to 1976 and appeared in M*A*S*H* in 1976 as battalion aid surgeon Captain Nick Saunders. His daytime television credits include Search for Tomorrow (1973–74), Another World (1983–84), and All My Children (2002). He played Dr. Steven Hamilton during the first two seasons of Smallville and appeared in Under One Roof (1995) and E-Ring (2005). From 2006 to 2012, Morton was a series regular on Syfy's Eureka, playing the scientist Henry Deacon. He took on the role of Eli Pope, Olivia Pope's father, in the drama series Scandal, a performance that earned him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 2014. From 2018 to 2020, Morton co-starred as Reverend Arthur Finer in the CBS series God Friended Me, for which he also directed three episodes, adding to directing credits he holds across four other television series.