Michael Urie

Michael Lorenzo Urie (born August 8, 1980) is an American actor. He is known for his portrayal of Marc St. James on the ABC comedy drama television series Ugly Betty and Brian on the Apple TV+ series Shrinking, a role for which he won a Critics Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor and received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series nomination. He can be heard as Bobby Kerns in As the Curtain Rises, an original podcast soap opera from the Broadway Podcast Network.

Michael Lorenzo Urie was born in Houston, Texas, and raised in Plano. He is of Scottish and Italian descent. He graduated from Plano Senior High School in 1998.

Urie then studied at Collin County Community College before being accepted at the Juilliard School in New York City. While there, he was a member of the Drama Division's Group 32 from 1999 to 2003. Urie graduated from Juilliard in 2003.

Urie, while still a student at Juilliard, performed in the world premiere of Love and Happiness (2001) at the Consolati Performing Arts Center, starring as a sixteen-year-old trying to get rid of his mother's boyfriend.

He received the 2002 John Houseman Prize for Excellence in Classical Theatre from the Juilliard School. His classical credits include Shakespeare, Jacobean drama, and commedia dell'arte.

Urie played the central character in the stage play WTC View as well as in the film adaptation.

He is on the board of Plum Productions and serves as its casting director. With the same company he has produced and appeared in Prachtoberfest and lowbrow (and a little bit tacky). As a freelance producer, he has worked on Like The Mountains and The Fantasticks (Four Players Theatre). He also directed the latter production.

In 2006, Urie began appearing in the ABC dramedy Ugly Betty as Marc St. James, the assistant of Wilhelmina Slater, played by Vanessa Williams. The show began with the concept that Wilhelmina would have a different assistant in each episode; thus Urie was originally billed as a guest star in the credits. However, Williams loved their chemistry, and Urie was signed on as a full-time regular midway through the first season. He and the cast were nominated for Screen Actors Guild awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series in 2007 and 2008. The role earned Urie a Ewwy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2009. He remained with Ugly Betty until the show's cancellation in 2010.