Wallace Shawn

Wallace Michael Shawn, born November 12, 1943, in New York City, is an American actor, playwright, essayist, and voice actor. He was raised on Manhattan's Upper East Side, the son of Cecille (née Lyon), a journalist, and William Shawn, the longtime editor of The New Yorker. His younger twin siblings are composer Allen Shawn and Mary, who is autistic and lives in an institution. Shawn attended The Collegiate School on Manhattan's West Side before transferring to The Putney School, a private liberal arts high school in Putney, Vermont. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in history from Harvard College and subsequently studied philosophy, politics, economics, and Latin at Magdalen College, Oxford, with an original intention of pursuing a diplomatic career. He also traveled to India as an English teacher through a Fulbright program.

Shawn's career as a playwright began taking shape in the 1970s. His early work, including Marie and Bruce (1978), explored emotional and sexual conflict through an absurdist style combining lyrical and violent language. His 1977 play A Thought in Three Parts generated controversy in London when a vice squad investigated the production and Parliament responded to allegations of pornographic content. He received an Obie Award for playwriting in 1975 for Our Late Night. His later plays shifted toward overtly political territory, drawing connections between individual psychology and the conduct of governments and social classes. Aunt Dan and Lemon, which Shawn has described as a cautionary tale against fascism, earned him a second Obie Award for playwriting in 1986 and also brought a Drama Desk Award Outstanding New Play nomination that same year. The Fever, originally performed for small audiences in private apartments, won an Obie for Best American Play in 1991. The Designated Mourner followed in 1996, and Grasses of a Thousand Colors in 2008. Three of his plays — The Designated Mourner, Marie and Bruce, and The Fever — have been adapted into films. Vanessa Redgrave starred in the HBO adaptation of The Fever, which first aired on June 13, 2007. Shawn is also credited as the translator of Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera, which opened at Studio 54 in Manhattan on March 25, 2006, and in which he appeared briefly in voiceover during "Song about the Futility of Human Endeavor." That Broadway appearance in 2006 represents his credited Broadway performance. He also participated in The 24 Hour Plays in 2004. Haymarket Books published his essay collections Essays in 2009 and Night Thoughts in 2017, and he has written political commentary for The Nation. In 2004 he published the single-issue progressive political magazine Final Edition, featuring contributions from Jonathan Schell, Noam Chomsky, Mark Strand, and Deborah Eisenberg. In 2005, he received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a Master American Dramatist.

Shawn's involvement with theater as a performer began in 1970 when he met director Andre Gregory, who has since directed several of his plays. He made his film debut in 1979, playing Diane Keaton's ex-husband in Woody Allen's Manhattan and an insurance agent in Bob Fosse's All That Jazz. He and Gregory, along with director Louis Malle, collaborated on the semi-autobiographical dialogue film My Dinner with Andre (1981), which Shawn also wrote. Their second collaboration was Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), a combined production and backstage drama centered on Uncle Vanya. Casting director Janet Hirshenson, after seeing My Dinner with Andre, was struck by Shawn's delivery of the word "inconceivable" and cast him as the villain Vizzini in The Princess Bride (1987), a role for which that word became a catchphrase. He played Mr. Hall in Clueless (1995), a role he later reprised in the television series based on the film. Additional film credits include The Bostonians (1984), Prick Up Your Ears (1987), Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (1989), My Favorite Martian (1999), Vegas Vacation (1997), The Haunted Mansion (2003), Southland Tales, The Double (2013), Maggie's Plan (2015), Marriage Story (2019), and A Master Builder (2013), in which he played the title role in a film adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's 1892 play, which opened in New York City in June 2014. He appeared in six Woody Allen films, among them Manhattan (1979), Radio Days (1987), and Rifkin's Festival (2020), the last of which was set in San Sebastián, Spain.

Shawn's television work has spanned multiple decades and genres. He held a recurring role as Jeff Engels on The Cosby Show from 1987 to 1991, and played Grand Nagus Zek on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine from 1993 to 1999. Additional recurring television roles include Stuart Best on Murphy Brown, Dr. Howard Stiles on Crossing Jordan, Arnie Ross on Taxi, Cyrus Rose on Gossip Girl from 2008 to 2012, Charles Lester on both The Good Wife and The Good Fight, and Father Frank Ignatius on Evil from 2022 to 2024. In 2018 he joined the cast of Young Sheldon as Dr. John Sturgis, Meemaw's boyfriend and Sheldon's physics professor, a role he held through 2024. He appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on February 4, 2010, playing Alan Rubin, and was featured in Chaka Khan's 1985 music video for "This Is My Night."

As a voice actor, Shawn has provided the voice of Rex in the Toy Story franchise beginning in 1995. He has also contributed voice work to Monsters, Inc., The Incredibles, A Goofy Movie, Kingdom Hearts III, Happily N'Ever After, Tom and Jerry: Shiver Me Whiskers, Family Guy, Regular Show, BoJack Horseman, and Animal Crackers. Shawn has noted that Toy Story director John Lasseter may have drawn on his performances in both My Dinner with Andre and The Princess Bride in casting him as the excitable Rex.