Robert Stanton

Robert Stanton is an American actor, director, and playwright born on March 8, 1963, in San Antonio, Texas. He was raised in Annandale, Virginia, the son of federal workers Billie Loree (née Baker) and Lloyd Winter Stanton, Jr. He attended George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, before training at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program, from which he graduated in 1985.

Stanton launched his theatrical career that same year in Joseph Papp's production of Measure for Measure at the Delacorte Theater. From 1989 to 1991, he was a member of the resident company at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His Broadway career, which spanned from 1992 to 2024, encompassed productions including Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, James Graham's Ink, George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan, John Guare's A Free Man of Color, Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart, Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia, and Alan Ayckbourn's A Small Family Business. His Off-Broadway work is equally extensive, with roughly two dozen credits that include David Lindsay-Abaire's Fuddy Meers, A. R. Gurney's A Cheever Evening, and Caryl Churchill's Owners and Traps. His performance in David Ives's All in the Timing in 1994 earned him both an Obie Award and a Clarence Derwent Award. The following year, he directed the Off-Broadway premiere of Ives's Don Juan in Chicago. In 2008 and 2009, Stanton appeared in Off-Broadway productions of Love Child, a 22-character farce written for two actors, which he co-wrote with Daniel H. Jenkins. At the Shakespeare Theatre Company, he appeared in Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude in 2012, playing Charles Marsden, and returned in 2016 to perform in a double bill of Jeffrey Hatcher's adaptation of The Critic and Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound, winning the company's Emery Battis Award for those performances.

Stanton made his film debut with a brief appearance in the thriller The House on Carroll Street in 1988. In 1992, he appeared in both A League of Their Own and Bob Roberts, and the following year played Henry Mitchell in John Hughes's Dennis the Menace. He portrayed John Chapman in the television series The Cosby Mysteries from 1994 to 1995. His subsequent film work included Don't Drink the Water (1994), Striptease (1996), Washington Square (1997), Red Corner (1997), Next Stop Wonderland (1998), Mercury Rising (1998), The Quiet American (2002), Head of State (2003), The Stepford Wives (2004), Find Me Guilty (2006), Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009), and Jason Bourne (2016). He also played Armand Montgomery, father to Freddie Highmore's Arthur, in two sequels to Luc Besson's Arthur and the Invisibles.

On television, Stanton appeared in episodes of Frasier (1998), Ed (2000), Third Watch (2001), Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2003), Damages (2011), NYC 22 (2012), The Good Wife (2013), and Orange Is the New Black (2013). From 2017 to 2018, he played Anthony "Robi" Frobisher in David E. Kelley's television adaptation of Stephen King's novel Mr. Mercedes. Stanton also provided voice work for the video games Manhunt (2003) and Bully (2006).