Michael Aronov

Michael Aronov is an American actor born on May 4, 1976, in Tashkent, Uzbek SSR, in what is now Uzbekistan. He is Bukharian Jewish and grew up in Miami, Florida, where he attended the New World School of the Arts. He earned a B.F.A. in theatre from the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University in 1998. His work spans Broadway, film, and television.

Aronov's Broadway career ran from 2012 to 2017 and includes two productions. He appeared as Siggie in the Tony-nominated revival of Golden Boy during the 2012–2013 season, a production directed by Bartlett Sher. He reunited with Sher for Oslo, in which he played Uri Savir. That performance earned him the 2017 Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play. Oslo also brought him the Lucille Lortel Award and the Obie Award, along with nominations from the Drama Desk Awards and the Outer Critics Circle. Prior to his Broadway work, Aronov collaborated with Sher and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on the American premiere of Blood and Gifts (2011), in which he played Gromov.

His stage career extends well beyond Broadway. He originated the lead role in Theresa Rebeck's Mauritius, a performance that won him the Elliot Norton Award for Best Actor. He also originated the role of Paul in Lyle Kessler's First Born at The Actors Studio in New York. Additional stage credits include Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire in Europe (2009), Jean in Miss Julie at the Cherry Lane Theatre (2004), Dionysus in The Bacchae 2.1 (2001), and Edgar in a production of King Lear (1999). He also performed his solo show Manigma in New York City in 2006 and again in 2010.

On television, Aronov spent three seasons on The Americans playing Anton Baklanov, a physicist and refusenik scientist held as a political prisoner. He joined the cast of The Blacklist in 2017 as Smokey Putnum, a hustler and sidekick to the character played by James Spader. He recurred on Showtime's Billions as a right-hand man to the character played by John Malkovich, and played one of the leads in the Cinemax series Jett. Additional television roles include Count Vincent of Naples on Reign, Danny Lambros on The Good Wife, Michael Cahill on Person of Interest, Ricky Vintano on Blue Bloods, billionaire Brice Hunter on Without a Trace, and recurring appearances on Madam Secretary and The Closer. He also played Danny Raden, a series lead opposite Larenz Tate, in the BET original pilot Gun Hill.

In film, Aronov is known for playing Chovka, a Chechen warlord, opposite Tom Hardy and James Gandolfini in The Drop (2014). He appeared opposite Ben Kingsley and Oscar Isaac in Operation Finale, and his other film credits include Lbs., Amexicano, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch.