Matt Letscher

Matt Letscher is an American actor, director, and playwright born on June 26, 1970, in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. He studied drama at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he was also a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity. His Broadway appearances span from 1997 to 2004 and include the play The Rivalry and Proposals.

Letscher's professional acting career began at Jeff Daniels' Purple Rose Theatre Company in Chelsea, Michigan, where he appeared in The Tropic Pickle during the company's second season. That performance led Daniels to arrange a meeting between Letscher and director Ron Maxwell, which resulted in a small role in the Civil War film Gettysburg. Following Daniels' advice, Letscher relocated to Los Angeles, where he secured guest roles on television before landing a series regular part in the Nancy Travis sitcom Almost Perfect in 1995, playing a naive television writer. He went on to appear as a series regular in Living in Captivity in 1998.

That same year, Letscher appeared in The Mask of Zorro as the villain Captain Harrison Love. He later reunited with Daniels in Gods and Generals, the prequel to Gettysburg, in which he portrayed Colonel Adelbert Ames, and also appeared in Daniels' directorial project Super Sucker. His television work during this period included the miniseries Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot and the television films King of Texas, The Beach Boys: An American Family, When Billie Beat Bobby, and Stolen Innocence. He also returned to the Purple Rose Theatre for the world premiere of Lanford Wilson's Rain Dance.

In 2002, Letscher replaced Burke Moses in a second pilot for the NBC comedy Good Morning, Miami, part of the network's Must See TV Thursday block. He played a former network anchor who served as the primary romantic rival to the show's main character. Though the series received negative reviews, Letscher and costar Constance Zimmer were noted as standouts, eventually paired as a combative couple before the show was canceled midway through its second season. His work on that series led to his casting in the lead role of the film Straight-Jacket, opposite Carrie Preston, about a gay Hollywood actor compelled to enter a false marriage in the 1950s. He also took on the leading role of Captain Jack Absolute in the Lincoln Center theater production of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals.

Letscher appeared in the cast of Joey and held a recurring role on The New Adventures of Old Christine. He was cast in Eli Stone as Nathan Stone, the older brother of the title character, a role that expanded in the show's second season. His work on that series with producer Greg Berlanti led to an arc on Berlanti's Brothers & Sisters. In 2012, he starred in Bent and Scandal, and was cast as Tom Bradshaw, Carrie Bradshaw's widowed father, in The Carrie Diaries, which ran for two seasons from 2013 to 2014. He appeared in two 2013 films: Atom Egoyan's Devil's Knot, about the West Memphis Three, and Spike Jonze's Her, opposite Amy Adams. Letscher also co-starred in 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. He portrayed Eobard Thawne, also known as Reverse-Flash, in a recurring capacity on The Flash and as a series regular in the second season of Legends of Tomorrow, reprising the role in two episodes of that show's seventh season.

As a playwright, Letscher wrote Sea of Fools, a farce set in Joseph McCarthy-era Hollywood featuring Elia Kazan as a character, which received its world premiere at the Purple Rose Theatre in June 2007. When Daniels withdrew from directing the production, Letscher also served as its director. His play Gaps in the Fossil Record was staged at the Pacific Resident Theater in 2009 and received its world premiere production at the Purple Rose Theatre in 2016. In 2010, he co-wrote the comedy pilot Gentrification with Nipper Knapp and Andrew Newberg, also starring in it; the pilot won best writing at the Comedy Central New York Television Festival. Letscher is married to Jennifer, and the couple has two children.