Russell Harvard

Russell Harvard is an American actor born on April 16, 1981, in Pasadena, Texas, into a third-generation deaf family. He is the younger of two deaf sons of Kay (Youngblood) and Henry Harvard; both his parents and his paternal grandmother are also deaf. In the early 1980s, the family relocated to Austin, Texas, so that his older brother Renny could attend Texas School for the Deaf, the alma mater of both parents. Harvard was initially enrolled in an oral program for children who learn exclusively through lip reading, but his parents transferred him to Texas School for the Deaf after he was unhappy in that setting. His education there included lip reading and speech therapy in English. Though he retains some hearing with the use of a hearing aid and can perceive speech and music, Harvard identifies as Deaf and regards American Sign Language as his first language.

After graduating from Texas School for the Deaf in 1999, Harvard enrolled at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., where he studied Theatre Arts. During his time there he periodically took leave to work as a teacher's assistant for preschoolers at the Alaska State School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Anchorage, where he considered pursuing a career as a theater teacher. He returned to that institution in 2008 as Artist in Residence. Harvard completed his bachelor's degree in Theatre Arts at Gallaudet in 2008, maintaining a high GPA throughout his studies.

His film career began while he was still at Gallaudet, when a professor encouraged him to submit materials to casting agents seeking a deaf actor for Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood (2007). Harvard won the role of H.W. Plainview, the adopted son of Daniel Day-Lewis's character, for which he researched and performed a vintage form of American Sign Language for the film's father-son confrontation scene. Shortly after completing that work, he made his first network television appearance in the episode "Silent Night" on CBS's CSI: NY, opposite Marlee Matlin, and later guest-starred in the "The Box" episode of Fox's Fringe in 2010. Additional television credits include Switched at Birth and Odd Mom Out. He also appeared in the short films Signage (2007), Words (2010), and This Is Normal (2013), took the principal role of Tim in the independent feature Claustrophobia (2011), and had leading roles in the ASL Films productions Versa Effect and Gerald. Harvard is a member of both the Screen Actors Guild and the Actors' Equity Association.

In the 2010 biopic The Hammer, Harvard portrayed deaf NCAA championship wrestler and UFC mixed martial arts fighter Matt Hamill. He was originally cast as Hamill's roommate Jay, but inherited the lead role when actor and producer Eben Kostbar, who had been set to play Hamill, stepped aside out of respect for the Deaf community's preference for an authentically Deaf actor in the part. Kostbar instead played Coach Cantrell, while the role of Jay went to Deaf actor Michael Anthony Spady. The Hammer received Audience Awards at multiple film festivals, including AFI FEST, the Cleveland International Film Festival, the Florida Film Festival, the Heartland Film Festival, the Miami Film Festival, and the Newport Beach Film Festival.

In August 2013, Harvard was cast as Mr. Wrench in the FX/MGM anthology series Fargo, an adaptation of the Coen brothers' 1996 film. The character, a deaf assassin who uses ASL both as a means of private communication with his partner Mr. Numbers and as a tool of menace toward targets, was inspired by series creator Noah Hawley's own encounters with sign language in his Austin neighborhood near Texas School for the Deaf. During the five-month shoot in Calgary, Alberta, Harvard worked closely with co-star Adam Goldberg, who played Mr. Numbers, and the show's ASL manager Catherine MacKinnon to develop effective ASL exchanges for their scenes together. Critical reception to the pairing was strongly positive, with reviewers in Time, HuffPost, and Vulture singling out the two actors' work. Hawley, who described Harvard as magnetic and charismatic in the role, extended the character's presence in the first season. Fargo went on to win three Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Miniseries, at the 66th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards on August 25, 2014; Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television at the 72nd Golden Globe Awards on January 11, 2015; and a 2014 Peabody Award. The Broadcast Television Journalists Association also honored the series with three Critics' Choice Television Awards, including Best Mini-Series, on June 19, 2014. Harvard reprised the role of Mr. Wrench in the third season of Fargo.

Harvard's stage career began in earnest with his earliest professional work in the world premiere of Rachel Sheinkin and GrooveLily's Sleeping Beauty Wakes for Deaf West Theatre at Center Theatre Group in 2007, where he played the twin roles of the Orderly and the Groundskeeper's Son. The following year he appeared in Aesop Who?, also for Deaf West. In 2007 he also assistant directed the young-audience musical Nobody's Perfect. At Gallaudet, his stage work included a 2006 production of A Streetcar Named Desire and the role of Claudio in a co-production with Amaryllis Theatre of Much Ado About Nothing. His interest in theater dates to age eight, when watching his cousin perform in The Wizard of Oz prompted him to pursue acting, and he became deeply involved in theater during his years at Texas School for the Deaf.

Harvard's Off-Broadway breakthrough came in 2012 with the New York premiere of Nina Raine's Tribes, in which he played Billy, the deaf son of a hearing British family. The role required him to handle both signing and spoken dialogue throughout the production. For this performance he received a Theatre World Award for Outstanding Debut Performance, as well as nominations for the Drama League, Outer Critics Circle, and Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor.

His Broadway career spanned 2015 to 2019 and included productions of Spring Awakening, King Lear, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Harvard's stage work, combined with his film and television career, establishes him as a prominent deaf actor working across multiple performance disciplines.