Matthew Morrison

Matthew Morrison is an American actor, singer, and dancer born on October 30, 1978, in Fort Ord, California, to Mary Louise (Fraser) and Thomas Morrison. He was raised in Chico, California, and is of Scottish and English ancestry. As a young performer, Morrison participated in Buena Park Youth Theater and attended the Orange County School of the Arts while enrolled at Los Alamitos High School, where he also performed in a musical alongside actress Jodie Sweetin. He later studied at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and was a member of the Collaborative Arts Project 21 (CAP21), though he left NYU before completing his degree to join the Broadway production of Footloose. His path to that casting was indirect: in 1999, while still at NYU, he appeared on Late Show with David Letterman and Total Request Live as part of a fictional parody boy band called "Fresh Step," conceived by Late Show writers. The choreographer for that project was also the choreographer for Footloose and helped Morrison secure a place in the show.

Morrison's Broadway career spans from 1998 to 2025. Among his early stage credits are a brief appearance in the 2002 revival of The Rocky Horror Show and a role in A Naked Girl on the Appian Way. He originated the role of Link Larkin in the Broadway production of Hairspray, which opened in 2002, remaining with the cast through January 2004. In 2005, he starred as Fabrizio Nacarelli in the Broadway premiere of Adam Guettel's The Light in the Piazza, earning both a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical and a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Musical. He departed that production on August 28, 2005. A decade later, Morrison returned to Broadway in the starring role of J.M. Barrie in Finding Neverland, which opened in April 2015 and ran into 2016.

Between his Broadway engagements, Morrison pursued a range of stage and screen work. In 2007, he received a Drama Desk nomination for his performance in the Off-Broadway production 10 Million Miles at the Atlantic Theater Company. The following year, he played Lieutenant Cable in a Lincoln Center production of South Pacific, leaving at the end of 2008. On television, he guest-starred on Ghost Whisperer, Numbers, CSI: Miami, and Hack, and appeared as Sir Harry in the 2005 ABC production of Once Upon a Mattress alongside Tracey Ullman, Zooey Deschanel, and Carol Burnett. His film credits from this period include Marci X (2003), Dan in Real Life (2007), and Music and Lyrics (2007), in which he played Cora Corman's manager.

Morrison became widely known to television audiences through his role as Will Schuester on the Fox series Glee, which premiered with a preview on May 19, 2009, and ran through 2015. Schuester is a high school teacher who takes on the task of reviving his school's glee club. Morrison also made his directorial debut on the series with the ninth episode of its third season. In 2019, he appeared in the ninth season of the FX anthology series American Horror Story, portraying a character named Trevor. He served as a dance captain on BBC One's The Greatest Dancer alongside Cheryl, Oti Mabuse, and, in its second season, Todrick Hall, for the show's two-season run in 2019 and 2020. In December 2020, he starred as the Grinch in NBC's Dr. Seuss' The Grinch Musical Live! Morrison was announced as a judge for the seventeenth season of So You Think You Can Dance alongside JoJo Siwa and Stephen "tWitch" Boss, but was fired from the production on May 27, 2022, before the season concluded; he was replaced by actress Leah Remini.

Morrison's recording career began in earnest when he signed with Mercury Records in January 2010. His debut solo album, Matthew Morrison, was released on May 10, 2011, and included duets with Elton John, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Sting. In 2012, he signed with Adam Levine's 222 Records, which released his second studio album, Where It All Began, on June 4, 2013, a collection of show tunes and jazz standards that included a cover of "It Don't Mean a Thing." A concert Morrison performed at Connecticut's Bushnell Center was recorded and broadcast on PBS in June 2013. His third album, Disney Dreamin' with Matthew Morrison, followed in 2020.

Outside of his primary stage and screen work, Morrison appeared in a staged reading of Dustin Lance Black's play 8 in March 2012, portraying Paul Katami in a production held at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre and broadcast on YouTube to benefit the American Foundation for Equal Rights. In July 2016, he performed alongside Megan Hilty with The New York Pops at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens. He played Billy Flynn in a limited engagement of Chicago in Japan in April and May 2024, performing at the Orix Theater in Osaka and the Tokyu Theater Orb. He also starred in the independent thriller From Embers and appeared in the television film A Paris Christmas Waltz, which aired on Great American Family in November 2023.

In his personal life, Morrison began dating Renee Puente in 2011. The two became engaged in June 2013, with Elton John helping to announce the news, and were married on October 18, 2014, in Maui, Hawaii. Their son was born on October 22, 2017, and their daughter on June 28, 2021.