Robert Joy

Robert Joy is a Canadian actor born on August 17, 1951, in Montreal, Quebec, who grew up in St. John's, Newfoundland. The son of Flora Louise (née Pike) and Dr. Clifton Joseph Joy, a physician and politician, he pursued his education at Memorial University of Newfoundland and attended Corpus Christi College, Oxford, on a Rhodes Scholarship. His Broadway career spanned from 1985 to 2022, with credits including The Nerd, Girl From the North Country, Sideshow, and Abe Lincoln in Illinois.

On screen, Joy is perhaps most widely recognized for his portrayal of Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Sid Hammerback on the CBS police procedural CSI: NY. He joined the series as a recurring character during its second season in the fall of 2005 and became a main cast member in season five. His film work dates back to the early 1980s, with appearances in Atlantic City (1980) and Ragtime (1981), both of which earned him Genie Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor. Additional film credits include Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), in which he played Madonna's punk musician boyfriend Jim, and the 1986 Alliance/CTV production Sword of Gideon, where he portrayed the Dutch-Israeli character Hans. He appeared in Gregory Hoblit's 1998 thriller Fallen alongside Denzel Washington, Donald Sutherland, James Gandolfini, and John Goodman, and took a lead role in George A. Romero's Land of the Dead (2005) as the simple-minded sharpshooter Charlie Houx. His other film appearances include Alexandre Aja's remake of The Hills Have Eyes (2006), the romantic comedy It's a Boy Girl Thing (2006), Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), and the comedy Superhero Movie (2008), in which he portrayed Dr. Stephen Hawking. He also received a Genie Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Whole New Thing. Joy appeared as himself in the 2012 documentary That Guy... Who Was in That Thing.

Earlier in his career, Joy was closely affiliated with the Newfoundland-based comedy troupe CODCO, collaborating on their pre-television stage productions and appearing as a guest performer in their television series. He co-starred in the 1986 Andy Jones film The Adventure of Faustus Bidgood, the only film to feature the entire CODCO cast. Beyond his Broadway work, Joy has maintained an active stage presence throughout the United States, including a role as Charles in King Charles III at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., which ran from February 7 through March 18, 2017, and appearances as Crito and the poet Mellitus in Socrates at The Public Theater in New York, which ran from April through June 3, 2019. He has also worked extensively in Shakespearean productions in both Canada and the United States.

In his personal life, Joy is divorced from actress Mary Joy, with whom he has one daughter, Ruby Joy, also an actress. In the summer of 2011, Joy and his daughter performed together in a production of Shakespeare's The Tempest. He was formerly the partner of actor William Duff-Griffin, who died from prostate cancer on November 13, 1994. Since 1995, Joy has been in a relationship with Broadway composer Henry Krieger.