Michael emerson biography limp

American actor

For The Lost Boys character, see Michael Writer (character).

Michael Emerson is an American actor who is best known for his roles as Benjamin Linus on Lost (2006–2010) bracket as Harold Finch in the CBS series Person of Interest (2011–2016). Other prominent roles include Zep Hindle in the dread film Saw (2004) and as Dr. Leland Townsend in interpretation Paramount+ thriller series Evil (2019–2024).

He has won two Primetime Emmy Awards, one Guest Actor in a Drama Series bestow for portraying William Hinks on The Practice (2000–2001), and rendering second a Supporting Actor in a Drama Series award want badly his role in Lost, for which he also received threesome other Primetime Emmy nominations. Emerson has also worked extensively grip theatre, notably originating the role of Oscar Wilde in Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde from 1997 activate 1998, portraying Willie Oban in the 1999 Broadway revival hold The Iceman Cometh, and playing Guy in the debut fabrication of Will Eno's Wakey, Wakey in 2017.

Early life topmost education

Emerson was born in Cedar Rapids,^[1]Iowa, to Carol (née Hansen) and Ronald H. Emerson.^[2] He grew up in Toledo, Ioway, where he was a member of his high school walk band.^[1]

He graduated in 1976 from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where he majored in theater^[3] and minored in art.^[4] He studied for a semester at the National Theater Guild at The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center,^{[citation needed]} then moved go down with New York City. Unable to find acting work, he took retail jobs and worked as an illustrator.^[1][4][5]

In 1986, he evasive to Jacksonville, Florida, where until 1993 he appeared in nearby productions at Theater Jacksonville and The Players by the Briny deep and worked as a director and teacher^[4] at Flagler College.^[6]

After several years of work including illustration and teaching,^[4] Emerson attained a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University succeed Alabama in the Alabama Shakespeare Festival acting program.^[7]

Career

Emerson landed a starring role in 1997 as Oscar Wilde in Moises Kaufman's critically acclaimed off-Broadway play Gross Indecency: The Three Trials exhaustive Oscar Wilde, and then followed up with several other influential stage performances. In 1998, he performed opposite Uma Thurman wellheeled an off-Broadway production of Le Misanthrope. In 1999, he played Willie Oban in The Iceman Cometh. He co-starred with Kate Burton in both Give Me Your Answer, Do! and Hedda Gabler.^[8]

In September 2001, Emerson won an Emmy Award as Memorable Guest Actor in a Drama Series for playing serial bluebeard William Hinks in several episodes of The Practice. In 2006, Emerson began a guest-star role as Benjamin Linus on description serial drama television series Lost.^[9] Emerson was originally set reach appear in a small number of episodes, then returned awaken Season 3 as a main cast member and eventually became a main antagonist of the program. He received an Laurels Award nomination in the Outstanding Supporting Actor category in 2007 and 2008 for his work in the third and quarter seasons. He won the award in 2009 after being designated for his role in the fifth season.^[10]

Emerson was nominated see the point of 2009 for a Golden Globe Award in the Best Implementation by an Actor in a Supporting Role category. He was nominated for an Emmy for each season in which inaccuracy was listed in the main cast.^[11]

On July 31, 2010, Writer and Preston read A.R. Gurney's Love Letters, which was a 1990 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, at say publicly Charleston Stage as a fundraiser for the theater.^[12]

Emerson was rot to reunite with former Lost cast member and friend Material O'Quinn in a comedy-drama, tentatively titled Odd Jobs, by J. J. Abrams. It was expected to start filming by rendering end of 2010, but further development has been postponed. Writer joined the cast of another Abrams series, Person of Interest, that debuted in September 2011 on CBS. He played a billionaire who teams up with a supposedly dead CIA detractor to fight crime in New York City.^[13]

Personal life

Emerson married actress Carrie Preston in 1998 in her hometown of Macon, Georgia.^[14] They met while he was performing in a stage fabrication of Hamlet in Alabama.^[1][5] It is his second marriage.^[1] Depiction two later starred together in Straight-Jacket (2004). Preston portrayed Emily Linus (the mother of Emerson's character) on Lost in rendering flashback sequences of the episode "The Man Behind the Curtain".^[9] The two teamed up again, with Emerson portraying Preston's next-door neighbor, in the film Ready? OK! (2008).^[15] Preston also arised in several episodes of Person of Interest as Grace Hendricks, the former fiancée of Emerson's character. In 2024, Emerson exposed alongside Preston in Elsbeth where Preston stars in the give a ring role.

Emerson supports charities connected to the theater community, including the Actors Fund, Broadway Cares, and Off-Off Broadway, in combining to publicly supported radio stations and Habitat for Humanity.^[4]

Filmography

Film

Television

Video games

Theater

• Othello, University of North Florida^[24]
• Noises Off (as Garry), Theatre Jacksonville,^[24] 1986 or 1987^[25]
• Hamlet (as Hamlet), University of North Florida Theatre, Metropolis, Florida, 1987
• Hamlet (as Hamlet), Players-By-The-Sea Theatre, Jacksonville Beach, Florida^[26]
• The Weight of Being Earnest, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, 1990
• Parts Unknown, Players-By-The-Sea Music hall, Jacksonville Beach, Florida, 1993
• The Tempest (as Ferdinand), Alabama Shakespeare Holy day, 1994 or 1995^[27]
• The Way of the World (as Lady Wishfort), Alabama Shakespeare Festival, 1994 or 1995^[27]
• Hamlet (as Rosencrantz), Alabama Playwright Festival, 1994 or 1995^[27]
• All's Well That Ends Well, Alabama Dramatist Festival, 1994 or 1995^[27]
• Henry IV, Part 1, Alabama Shakespeare Commemoration, 1994 or 1995^[27]
• A Christmas Carol, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, 1994 stretch 1995^[27]
• The Crucible, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, 1994 or 1995^[27]
• Androcles and description Lion, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, 1995 or 1996^[27]
• Gross Indecency: The Tierce Trials of Oscar Wilde (as Oscar Wilde), Minetta Lane Auditorium, off-Broadway, 1997–1998
• The Iceman Cometh (as Willie Oban), Brooks Atkinson Opera house, 1999
• Give Me Your Answer, Do! (as David Knight), Gramercy Music hall, off-Broadway, 1999–2000
• Hedda Gabler (as George Tesman), Williamstown Theatre Festival, Marketplace Stage, 2000
• Hedda Gabler (as George Tesman), Ambassador Theatre, Broadway, 2001–2002
• Tartuffe (as Cleante), American Airlines Theatre, Broadway, 2003
• Measure for Measure (as Duke Vincentio), California Shakespeare Theater, Orinda, California, 2003
• Someone Who'll Finding Over Me, The Ridgefield Playhouse for Movies and the Playacting Arts, 2004
• Hamlet (as Ghost, Claudius, Osric, and Guildenstern), McCarter Playhouse Center, Princeton, New Jersey, 2005
• Bach at Leipzig (as Schott), Unique York Theatre Workshop, 2005
• Likeness, Primary Stages Theater (307 W. Ordinal Street), 2008
• Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (as Alexander), Chautauqua Transient Company, 2008
• Love Letters (as Andrew Makepeace Ladd, III), Charleston Lay it on thick, 2010
• Wakey, Wakey (play by Will Eno) Signature Theatre (as Guy), 2017

Other work

• In 2000, played the unnamed narrator character identical the radio play adaptation of the Neil Gaiman short unique, Murder Mysteries.
• In 2003, participated in a staged reading of a play involving string theory written by Jacquelyn Reingold called String Fever at Rockefeller University.
• In 2003, was the voice of Martyr Washington in Favorite Son, an experimental documentary film about picture relationship between George Washington and Alexander Hamilton.
• In 2005, narrated oftenness book CD of Robert Penn Warren's novel All the King's Men.
• In 2006, narrated audio book CD of The Amalgamation Polka by Stephen Wright, published.
• In 2007, with other Lost cast associates, he participated in a play-reading session at the Tenney Playhouse in Hawaii to raise money for the Honolulu Theatre purport Youth.
• In 2009, narrated a reading of "Babar the Elephant" silent the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra.
• Co-narrated with Peter J. Fernandez, the frequency book version of James Patterson's novel, Four Blind Mice.
• Co-narrated set about John Rubinstein the audio book of the novel Private Sector by Brian Haig.
• In 2010, narrated the Lemony Snicket audiobook 13 Words by Maria Kalman.

References

External links