Thomas Gibson

Thomas Gibson is an American actor and director born on July 3, 1962, in Charleston, South Carolina, to Charles M. and Beth Gibson. He has three brothers and two sisters. His father was a lawyer and liberal Democrat who served in both the South Carolina state Senate and House, and his mother worked as a social worker. Gibson is Catholic. He began acting at age nine in children's theater, appearing in Julian Wiles' Seize the Street: the Skateboard Musical, a Young Charleston Theater Company production. As a teenager, he trained in classical theater through the Young Charleston Theater Company and the Footlight Players, frequently performing at the historic Dock Street Theatre.

Gibson attended the College of Charleston from 1979 to 1981, during which time he interned at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Encouraged there to apply to the Juilliard School, he won a scholarship to Juilliard's Drama Division, where he was part of Group 14 from 1981 to 1985 and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. His stage debut came in David Hare's A Map of the World at the New York Shakespeare Festival, after which he continued performing in productions for producer Joe Papp at the Public Theater and in Central Park. Between 1985 and 1990, his Broadway work included The Miser and Hay Fever. During this period he also worked in plays by Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Molière, Tennessee Williams, Howard Brenton, Romulus Linney, Noël Coward, and Alan Ball, and he waited tables at Tavern on the Green.

Gibson made his first television appearance in 1987 in a guest role on the legal drama Leg Work, followed by appearances on the daytime dramas As the World Turns and Another World. His film debut came in 1992 in Ron Howard's Far and Away, in which he played Stephen Chase, the villainous rival of Tom Cruise's character for Nicole Kidman's character's affections. In 1993 he took the lead role of David, a gay waiter, in Denys Arcand's Love and Human Remains, and that same year portrayed bisexual businessman Beauchamp Day in the television adaptation of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. He later reunited with Arcand in Stardom in 2000. In 1999, Gibson appeared in Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut, once again alongside Cruise and Kidman.

Gibson's television profile rose significantly when he was cast as Dr. Danny Nyland on the medical drama Chicago Hope, a role he held from 1994 to 1998. From 1997 to 2002 he starred as Greg Montgomery in the sitcom Dharma & Greg, receiving two Golden Globe Award nominations for the role and directing two episodes during the show's final season in 2001. In 2005, he was cast as Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner, unit chief of the Behavioral Analysis Unit, in the CBS series Criminal Minds. He began directing episodes of that series in 2013, ultimately helming six. On August 11, 2016, following an on-set altercation with writer-producer Virgil Williams, Gibson was suspended after appearing in two episodes of the twelfth season. ABC Studios and CBS Television Studios announced the termination of his contract the following day. His character's departure was addressed in the October 12, 2016, episode "Taboo" and later resolved in "Elliot's Pond," in which Hotchner is revealed to have resigned and entered the Witness Protection Program after learning a serial killer was targeting his son. In April 2025, Gibson appeared in the world premiere of the play Henry Johnson at Chicago's Victory Gardens Theater.

Gibson has three children. He and his wife Christine separated in 2011, and he filed for divorce in 2014, with the divorce finalized on February 14, 2018. He has resided in San Antonio, Texas, and maintains a house on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina. Gibson participates annually in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and other golf events, and is friends with golfer Corey Pavin. He was part of the 2010 Host Committee for the Inaugural SAG Foundation Golf Classic and co-hosted the second annual edition of that event with Criminal Minds castmate Joe Mantegna.