Peter MacNicol

Peter MacNicol (born April 10, 1954) is an American actor. He received a Theatre World Award for his 1981 Broadway debut in the play Crimes of the Heart. His film roles include Galen in Dragonslayer (1981), Stingo in Sophie's Choice (1982), Janosz Poha in Ghostbusters II (1989), Gary Granger in Addams Family Values (1993), Renfield in Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), and David Langley in Bean (1997).

MacNicol won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2001 for his role as the eccentric lawyer John Cage in the FOX comedy-drama Ally McBeal (1997–2002). He is also known for his television roles as attorney Alan Birch in the medical drama Chicago Hope (1994–1998), X the Eliminator on Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law (2000–2007), physicist Dr. Larry Fleinhardt on the CBS crime drama Numbers (2005–2010), Tom Lennox in the sixth season of action-thriller 24 (2007), Doctor Octopus in The Spectacular Spider-Man (2008–09), Dr. Stark on Grey's Anatomy (2010–11), Jeff Kane on the political satire series Veep (2016–2019), and Nigel the Advisor on Tangled: The Series (2017–2020). He also voiced the Mad Hatter in the Batman: Arkham video game series. He also played FBI Deputy Director Simon Sifter during season one of CSI: Cyber (2015–16).

MacNicol was born on April 10, 1954, in Dallas, Texas, the youngest of five children of Barbara, a homemaker, and John MacNicol, a corporate executive who became an Episcopal priest later in life.

MacNicol performed at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis for two seasons from 1978 to 1979. He appeared in productions, which included Hamlet and The Pretenders. He made his New York debut in the 1980 off-Broadway play, Crimes of the Heart. The production then moved to Broadway in 1981, and he won the Theatre World Award. It was during this production that a casting agent noticed him and auditioned him for a role in the film, Sophie's Choice. In 1981 he landed the starring role in his first film, Dragonslayer, opposite Ralph Richardson.

In 1987, MacNicol starred in the Trinity Repertory Company's original production of the stage adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men, which first appeared at the Dallas Theater Center. The adaptation was developed in consultation with the author.

Among his other stage credits is the Broadway production of Black Comedy/White Lies. He has appeared in repertory theater, including the New York Shakespeare Festival where he played title roles in Richard II and Romeo and Juliet; and in Twelfth Night, Rum and Coke and Found a Peanut.

In film, he plays the naive Southern writer who falls in love with Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice, the museum curator Janosz Poha in Ghostbusters II, and overenthusiastic camp director Gary Granger alongside future Numbers co-star David Krumholtz in Addams Family Values. Other film credits include the films Housesitter and American Blue Note.

From 1992 to 1993 MacNicol starred opposite John Forsythe, Holland Taylor, David Hyde Pierce and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as press secretary Bradley Grist in the political television comedy The Powers That Be. In addition, he played Mario, a hotel receptionist, in the 1993 Cheers episode "Look Before You Sleep".