Peter Friedman

Peter Friedman is an American actor born on April 24, 1949, in New York City. A graduate of Hofstra University, he has worked across stage, film, and television over a career spanning more than five decades, with Broadway appearances from 1972 through 2024.

Friedman made his Broadway debut in 1972 in Eugene O'Neill's The Great God Brown, and the following year appeared in a revival of The Visit, playing the Carpenter. His early stage work also included Piaf on Broadway in 1981 and, that same year, A Soldier's Play Off-Broadway. In 1986 he played Humphrey Taylor in the Off-Broadway production of The Common Pursuit, a run lasting from October 1986 to August 1987, for which he received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play. He appeared in both the Off-Broadway and Broadway productions of The Heidi Chronicles in 1988 and 1989, playing Scoop Rosenbaum, earning a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Play. The Roundabout Theatre Company's Broadway production of Twelve Angry Men featured Friedman from October 2004 to March 2005. He also appeared on Broadway in The Tenth Man.

His most celebrated Broadway role came in Ragtime, in which he played the Jewish immigrant Tateh, first in the pre-Broadway tryout in 1996 and then on Broadway in 1998. The performance earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical as well as a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Musical. On March 27, 2023, he reprised the role in a sold-out 25th anniversary performance at the Minskoff Theater benefiting the Entertainment Community Fund.

Off-Broadway, Friedman accumulated an extensive body of work. He appeared in the Manhattan Theatre Club production of Donald Margulies's The Loman Family Picnic from October 1993 to January 1994. In 2008 he received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play for his role as Frank in Body Awareness. From October to November 2009, he played James in Annie Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation at Playwrights Horizons, alongside Heidi Schreck, Reed Birney, Deirdre O'Connell, and Tracee Chimo, in a production directed by Sam Gold. The cast received the 2010 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance. He appeared in Amy Herzog's After the Revolution at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in the summer of 2010 and reprised the role in the Off-Broadway production at Playwrights Horizons that fall. He played Doug in The Great God Pan from December 2012 to January 2013, receiving another Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play, and appeared in the New York premiere of Lauren Yee's The Hatmaker's Wife from August to September 2013. In 2014 he appeared in the musical Fly By Night. In 2017 he portrayed Polonius in the Public Theatre's production of Hamlet, starring Oscar Isaac and Keegan-Michael Key, and that same year appeared in the world premiere of The Treasurer at Playwrights Horizons, earning a 2018 Lucille Lortel Award nomination for Best Actor. In 2023 he starred opposite Sydney Lemmon in Max Wolf Friedlich's play Job at the SoHo Playhouse.

Friedman's film career includes roles in Prince of the City (1981), Daniel (1983), Single White Female (1992), Safe (1995), I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), Freedomland (2006), The Savages (2007), I'm Not There (2007), Synecdoche, New York (2008), Side Effects (2013), and She Said (2022), in which he portrayed Lanny Davis. On television, he starred as George Silver in the series Brooklyn Bridge from 1991 to 1993, and later portrayed Hank Armstrong in The Path on Hulu from 2016 to 2018. He took a recurring role as George in the final season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in 2023. His most prominent television role was Frank Vernon, long-time confidant of Logan Roy and vice-chairman of Waystar Royco, in the HBO drama Succession, which he played from 2018 to 2023. He won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series with the Succession cast in both 2022 and 2023.