Michael Cristofer

Michael Cristofer, born Michael Procaccino on January 22, 1945, in Trenton, New Jersey, is an American actor, playwright, filmmaker, and book writer whose Broadway career spans from 1977 to 2010. The son of Mary and Joseph Procaccino, he grew up in Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey, and began acting as a student at Notre Dame High School. He subsequently built his early career primarily on the stage while also developing his skills as a playwright and screenwriter.

Cristofer's most celebrated achievement as a playwright came with The Shadow Box, which earned him both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play in 1977, along with a Theatre World Award that same year. The play also became the basis for a film screenplay he wrote, which was directed by Paul Newman and received a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination. His other stage works include Black Angel, produced at Circle Repertory Company; The Lady and the Clarinet, starring Stockard Channing and produced by the Mark Taper Forum, Long Wharf Theater, Off-Broadway, and on the London Fringe; Breaking Up, produced at Primary Stages; Ice, produced at Manhattan Theatre Club; and Amazing Grace, starring Marsha Mason, which received the American Theater Critics Award as the best play produced in the United States during the 1996–1997 season. His play The Whore and Mr. Moore premiered at Dorset Theatre Festival's 2012 summer season, and he wrote the libretto for Champion, a boxing opera in jazz music based on the life of prizefighter Emile Griffith, composed by trumpeter Terence Blanchard, which premiered in June 2013 at Opera Theater of St. Louis.

As a Broadway performer, Cristofer appeared in Hamlet, The Cherry Orchard, The Shadow, and the Broadway revival of A View from the Bridge, which starred Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson. Following a fifteen-year hiatus from acting, he returned to the stage in productions including Romeo and Juliet at the New York Shakespeare Festival, Trumpery by Peter Parnell, Three Sisters at Williamstown Theater, and Body of Water with Christine Lahti. He also created the role of Gus in Tony Kushner's The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures at the Public Theater.

Cristofer's film writing credits include the screenplays for Falling in Love; The Witches of Eastwick, adapted from the novel by John Updike; The Bonfire of the Vanities, adapted from the novel by Tom Wolfe and directed by Brian De Palma; Breaking Up; and Casanova. As a film director, he helmed Gia, starring Angelina Jolie, Mercedes Ruehl, and Faye Dunaway, which received five Emmy Award nominations and earned him a Directors Guild Award. He subsequently directed Body Shots and Original Sin, released in 2001.

For eight years, Cristofer served as artistic advisor and ultimately co-artistic director of River Arts Repertory in Woodstock, New York, a company that produced works by writers including Richard Nelson, Mac Wellman, and Eric Overmeyer, as well as the American premiere of Edward Albee's Three Tall Women, a production that later transferred to Off-Broadway. During his tenure there, he wrote stage adaptations of the films Love Me or Leave Me and Casablanca, and directed Joanne Woodward in his adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts.

On television, Cristofer played Truxton Spangler on Rubicon in 2010 and Jerry Rand on Smash in 2012. In 2013–2014, he portrayed millionaire witch-hunter Harrison Renard in American Horror Story: Coven. Beginning in 2015, he appeared as Phillip Price, the CEO of E Corp, in the television series Mr. Robot, first in guest appearances across four episodes of season one before becoming a series cast member through seasons two, three, and four, a run that continued through 2019.