Peter MacNicol

Peter MacNicol is an American actor born on April 10, 1954, in Dallas, Texas, the youngest of five children of Barbara, a homemaker, and John MacNicol, a corporate executive who later became an Episcopal priest. MacNicol's stage career began at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, where he performed for two seasons from 1978 to 1979 in productions including Hamlet and The Pretenders.

MacNicol made his New York debut in 1980 in an off-Broadway production of Crimes of the Heart, which subsequently transferred to Broadway in 1981. That Broadway debut earned him a Theatre World Award in 1982. His Broadway career extended through 1993 and included appearances in White Liars and The Nerd, as well as the production of Black Comedy/White Lies. His stage work also encompassed the New York Shakespeare Festival, where he took on title roles in Richard II and Romeo and Juliet, and appeared in Twelfth Night, Rum and Coke, and Found a Peanut. In 1987, MacNicol starred in the Trinity Repertory Company's original stage adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men, a production developed in consultation with the author that originated at the Dallas Theater Center.

It was during the Broadway run of Crimes of the Heart that a casting agent noticed MacNicol and brought him in to audition for Sophie's Choice. He went on to appear in that 1982 film as Stingo, a naive Southern writer who falls in love with the character played by Meryl Streep. His film work had already begun with the 1981 fantasy Dragonslayer, in which he played Galen opposite Ralph Richardson. Subsequent film roles included Janosz Poha, the museum curator in Ghostbusters II (1989); Gary Granger, an overenthusiastic camp director in Addams Family Values (1993); Renfield in Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995); and David Langley in Bean (1997). Additional film credits include Housesitter and American Blue Note.

MacNicol's television career gained significant momentum in the 1990s. From 1992 to 1993, he starred as press secretary Bradley Grist in the political comedy The Powers That Be, alongside John Forsythe, Holland Taylor, David Hyde Pierce, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. In 1993, he also appeared in the Cheers episode "Look Before You Sleep" as Mario, a hotel receptionist. Beginning in 1994, MacNicol played attorney Alan Birch on the medical drama Chicago Hope, a role he held through part of the show's second season. He later reunited with Chicago Hope creator David E. Kelley on the FOX comedy-drama Ally McBeal, joining in 1997 as the eccentric lawyer John Cage. MacNicol appeared as a main guest star through Season 4 and as a recurring character in Season 5, and his performance earned him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2001.

From 2005 to 2010, MacNicol starred as physicist Dr. Larry Fleinhardt on the CBS crime drama Numb3rs. During that run, he stepped away briefly to portray Tom Lennox in the sixth season of the action-thriller series 24, a role he later reprised in the television film 24: Redemption. He played Dr. Stark, a pediatric surgeon, on Grey's Anatomy from 2010 to 2011, and portrayed FBI Deputy Director Simon Sifter during the first season of CSI: Cyber in 2015 and 2016. MacNicol appeared as Jeff Kane in the political satire Veep from 2016 to 2019. He was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding guest actor for his work in Veep's fifth season, though that nomination was rescinded after he appeared in more episodes than the rules for the guest actor category allow. He received another nomination in the same category for the seventh season of Veep.

MacNicol has also contributed extensively to animated productions, voicing characters including X the Eliminator on Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law from 2000 to 2007, Doctor Octopus in The Spectacular Spider-Man from 2008 to 2009, Nigel the Advisor on Tangled: The Series from 2017 to 2020, Dr. Kirk Langstrom in The Batman, David Clinton in Justice League Unlimited, Professor Ivo in Young Justice, and Firefly in G.I. Joe: Renegades. He voiced the Mad Hatter in the Batman: Arkham video game series, including Batman: Arkham City, Batman: Arkham Origins, and Batman: Arkham Knight. MacNicol has been married to Martha Cumming since 1986.