| Sam Waterston | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Name: | Samuel Atkinson Waterston |
| Born: | November 15, 1940 |
| Birth Hometown: | Cambridge, Massachusetts |
| Occupation: | Actor, television producer, television director |
| Years active: | 1962–present |
Samuel Atkinson Waterston (born November 15, 1940) is an American actor. Waterston is known for his work in theater, television and, film. He has received numerous accolades including a Primetime Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award as well as a nominations for an Academy Award, a Tony Award, and a BAFTA Award. Having starred in over 80 film and television productions during his 50-year career, he is also known for numerous stage productions on Broadway and Off-Broadway. All Movie historian Hal Erickson characterized Waterston as having "cultivated a loyal following with his quietly charismatic, unfailingly solid performances." Waterston received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010 and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2012.
Waterston studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and the American Actors Workshop. He started his career in theater on the New York stage, appearing in multiple revivals of Shakespeare. In 1975, he starred as Hamlet at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park, and later performed the role at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater. In 1977, he starred in an off-Broadway production of Measure for Measure as Duke Vincentio alongside Meryl Streep and John Cazale at the Delacorte Theatre. Throughout Waterston's theater career, he continued to appear alongside notable actors including Raul Julia in Indians (1969), James Woods in The Trial of Catonsville Nine (1970), Liv Ullmann in A Doll's House (1975), Jane Alexander in Hamlet (1975), James Brolin in Capricorn One, and Glenn Close in Benefactors (1980). In 1993, he portrayed Abraham Lincoln onstage in Abe Lincoln in Illinois where he received a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations for his performance.
In 1974 Waterston played Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby (1974) alongside Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, earning a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture nomination. He starred in Rancho Deluxe (1975), then appeared in Hopscotch, and Heaven's Gate (the latter two in 1980). He received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Sydney Schanberg in Roland Joffe's The Killing Fields (1984), for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor as well as BAFTA Award and Golden Globe Award nominations. Waterston has acted in multiple Woody Allen films including Interiors (1978), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), September (1987), and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). He also appeared in The Man in the Moon (1991), Serial Mom(1994), Nixon (1995), Miss Sloane (2016) and On the Basis of Sex (2018).
In 1973, one of his early television roles included a television film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, alongside Katharine Hepburn. Among a variety of other television roles, he is perhaps most known for his iconic starring role as Jack McCoy on the NBC television series Law & Order (1994–2010, 2022–), for which he received a Screen Actors Guild Award along with Golden Globe Award and Emmy Award nominations. He also portrayed Abraham Lincoln in the miniseries Lincoln (1988) and the Ken Burns miniseries The Civil War (1990). From 2012 to 2014, he portrayed Charlie Skinner in Aaron Sorkin's political HBO drama series The Newsroom alongside Jeff Daniels. He has since acted in the western limited series Godless (2017), the comedy series Grace and Frankie (2015–2022), and the limited series The Dropout (2022). In 2022, he returned as Jack McCoy in a revival of Law & Order (2022).