Reed Birney

Reed Birney is an American actor born on September 11, 1954, in Alexandria, Virginia, whose stage career spans Broadway and off-Broadway from the 1970s through the present day. He trained at the Boston University College of Fine Arts for two years before relocating to New York City, where he continued his studies through classes sponsored by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Birney's stage work began off-Broadway in 1976, when he appeared at Playwrights Horizons in Gemini, written by Albert Innaurato. He went on to perform in numerous off-Broadway productions over the following decades, including Bug in 2004 and Circle Mirror Transformation in 2009, for which he received the 2010 Obie Award for Performance. That same body of work earned him a Special Drama Desk Award in 2011 honoring his career. In 2012, he appeared in Annie Baker's adaptation of Uncle Vanya at the Soho Rep, a performance for which he received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Play. In January 2017, he appeared off-Broadway at Second Stage Theatre in Tracy Letts's Man from Nebraska.

His Broadway credits include Gemini, Picnic, Casa Valentina, The Humans, and 1984. Birney appeared in Casa Valentina in 2014, earning the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play. His performance in The Humans brought him the 2016 Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play, as well as the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance that same year. From May to October 2017, he starred as O'Brien in the Broadway production of 1984 at the Hudson Theatre.

Birney has also maintained an extensive television career. He played Mr. Prescott on Gossip Girl from 2007 to 2009, Donald Blythe on the Netflix series House of Cards from 2013 to 2017, Tom Connolly on The Blacklist from 2014 to 2015, and appeared in Home Before Dark from 2021 to 2022. Additional television credits include The Americans, Succession, and the role of Lieutenant Stans in Hulu's adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale. On film, his credits include Four Friends in 1981, A Perfect Murder in 1998, Morning Glory in 2010, Mass in 2021, and The Menu in 2022.

Outside of performing, Birney serves as an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University. He is married to actress Constance Shulman, and the couple have two children, Gus Birney and Ephraim Birney, both of whom are actors. His nephew is filmmaker Albert Birney.