Peter Krause

Peter Krause is an American actor, director, and producer born on August 12, 1965, in Alexandria, Minnesota. He was raised in Roseville, a suburb of St. Paul, where his parents, Wanda Marie Krause and William Popham Krause, both worked as teachers. Krause has two siblings, Amy and Michael. As a teenager, he participated in track and field and gymnastics and attended Alexander Ramsey High School in Roseville, graduating in 1983.

Krause enrolled at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, initially as a pre-medical student. During his junior year he discovered acting and changed his major to English Literature, performing in college productions including Paul Sills' Story Theatre, Caryl Churchill's Cloud 9, and Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter. After graduating in 1987, he relocated to New York City and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in acting from New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts in 1990. While at Tisch, he appeared in productions of Macbeth, Uncle Vanya, and Arms and the Man. During his time in New York, he worked as a bartender at Broadway's Palace Theatre alongside Aaron Sorkin, who would later create and executive produce Sports Night, in which Krause starred.

His first feature film appearance came in 1987 in the slasher film Blood Harvest. Following the completion of his MFA, Krause moved to Los Angeles and made his television debut playing various roles in Carol Burnett's comedy anthology series Carol & Company from 1990 to 1991. In the early 1990s he appeared in episodes of Seinfeld, Beverly Hills, 90210, and Ellen. Beginning in 1996, he took on a recurring role as Kevin, Cybill Shepherd's son-in-law, on the sitcom Cybill, a part he held for four seasons.

From 1998 to 2000, Krause portrayed sports producer Casey McCall on the ABC comedy Sports Night. The series earned significant critical praise but was canceled after two seasons due to low ratings. His most celebrated television role followed when he was cast as funeral director Nate Fisher in the HBO drama series Six Feet Under, which ran from 2001 to 2005. The performance earned him three Primetime Emmy Award nominations, two Golden Globe Award nominations, and seven Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. He won two of those SAG Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.

In the summer of 2004, Krause appeared on Broadway in a revival of Arthur Miller's After the Fall. In December 2006, he played Detective Joe Miller, the lead role, in the Sci Fi Channel miniseries The Lost Room. From 2007 to 2009, he portrayed young lawyer Nick George in the ABC drama Dirty Sexy Money, opposite Donald Sutherland, a role he had initially declined three times before accepting. He also served as a series producer on that show. Krause appeared in the 2011 fantasy film Beastly, based on Alex Flinn's novel of the same name. From 2010 to 2015, he played Adam Braverman in the NBC comedy-drama Parenthood, directing three episodes of the series during its run.

From 2016 to 2017, Krause starred opposite Mireille Enos in the ABC crime drama The Catch, produced by Shonda Rhimes. In August 2017, he was cast in Ryan Murphy's drama 9-1-1, playing fire captain Bobby Nash, one of the show's central characters, and serving as executive producer. The series aired on Fox before moving to ABC, and Krause remained with it through Season 8 in 2025, when his character was written out as part of the show's creative direction. He also narrated Citizen Hearst, an Insignia Films documentary about William Randolph Hearst that aired as a two-part American Experience series on September 27 and 28, 2021.

Krause and his former girlfriend Christine King have a son, Roman, born in 2001. In 2010, he began a relationship with actress Lauren Graham, whom he had first met in 1995 while both appeared in the sitcom Caroline in the City. The two later became a couple while co-starring on Parenthood. After eleven years together, their relationship ended in 2021.