Matt Bomer

Matthew Staton Bomer was born on October 11, 1977, in Webster Groves, Missouri, to Elizabeth Macy (née Staton) and John O'Neill Bomer IV. His father, a Dallas Cowboys draft pick, played for the team from 1972 to 1974. Bomer has a sister, Megan, and a brother, Neill, who works as an engineer. He is a distant cousin of singer Justin Timberlake, and his family ancestry includes English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Swiss-German, and French heritage. Bomer was raised in Spring, Texas, where he attended Klein High School alongside classmates Lee Pace and Lynn Collins. In high school he played wide receiver and defensive back before shifting his focus to acting.

At seventeen, Bomer made his stage debut as Young Collector in a production of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire at the Alley Theatre in Houston. He later appeared in a 1998 production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and in Romeo and Juliet at the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City, Utah. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drama from Carnegie Mellon University in 2000, and during 1999 spent a year living in Galway, Ireland, working as a bartender.

After graduating, Bomer relocated to New York City. His television debut came in 2000 when he played Ian Kipling on the ABC soap opera All My Children. He subsequently landed a contract role on Guiding Light, portraying Ben Reade, a character connected to several of the show's core families, from 2001 until his departure in 2003. He then appeared in the supernatural drama Tru Calling from 2003 to 2004, playing Luc Johnston opposite Eliza Dushku. In 2003, Bomer also returned to the stage in a Powerhouse Theater production of Paul Weitz's play Roulette in New York. In 2007, he took on the role of Ernest Hemingway in a Williamstown Theatre Festival production of Crispin Whittell's Villa America in Massachusetts.

Bomer's film debut came in 2005 in the Robert Schwentke-directed thriller Flightplan, opposite Jodie Foster, a film that grossed $223.3 million worldwide. He followed that with a supporting role in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning in 2006, portraying Eric, a Vietnam War veteran. A recurring role in the NBC action comedy Chuck from 2007 to 2009 brought him wider recognition. In 2009, he took on the lead role of con artist Neal Caffrey in the USA Network series White Collar, which premiered on August 23, 2009, to an audience of more than 5.4 million viewers and ran through 2014. Bomer also produced 19 episodes of the series alongside costar Tim DeKay, and won a People's Choice Award at the 2015 ceremony for his work on the show.

On the big screen, Bomer appeared in supporting roles in Andrew Niccol's science fiction thriller In Time in 2011, Steven Soderbergh's comedy-drama Magic Mike in 2012 and its 2015 sequel, and Shane Black's neo-noir film The Nice Guys in 2016. In 2015, he won a Golden Globe Award and received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for his portrayal of a closeted writer in the television film The Normal Heart. He made a guest appearance on the fourth season of FX's American Horror Story before being elevated to the main cast for its fifth season. From 2019 to 2023, he starred as Larry Trainor in the Max series Doom Patrol. In 2023, he played a closeted World War II veteran in the miniseries Fellow Travelers, a role that earned him additional Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy Award nominations. As an executive producer on Fellow Travelers, Bomer also received a Peabody Award. His body of work has additionally earned him a Critics' Choice Television Award.

Bomer's Broadway career spans from 2011 to 2018. In September 2011, he appeared at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in Dustin Lance Black's play 8, a staged re-enactment of the federal trial that overturned California's Proposition 8, directed by Joe Mantello. Bomer played Jeff Zarrillo, one of the plaintiffs in that federal case, and reprised the role in March 2012 at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles. In 2018, he starred in a Broadway revival of Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band, playing the role of Donald, and later reprised that role for the 2020 film adaptation.