Michael Stuhlbarg

b. 1968 · American stage, film and television actor

Biography

Michael Stuhlbarg (born in Long Beach, California, in 1968) is an American actor whose career spans the stage, film and television. Trained at Juilliard in New York, he first built his reputation in theatre before moving into film, and his work in auteur pictures and large studio productions has made him one of the more recognisable character actors of his generation.

Raised in a Reform Jewish family, he first performed at eleven, appearing as a chorus member in a community production of Bye Bye Birdie. After two years at UCLA, he moved to Juilliard, where he studied from 1988 to 1992. His stage work included productions of Long Day's Journey into Night and The Pillowman, the latter earning him critical acclaim in New York and his first Tony nomination. His early film roles were mostly supporting parts, in films such as The Grey Zone and Body of Lies.

His breakthrough came with A Serious Man (2009), the Coen brothers' dark comedy, in which he played a beleaguered Jewish university professor; the role earned him a Golden Globe nomination. That same year he joined the cast of Boardwalk Empire, the HBO drama produced by Martin Scorsese, playing the crime boss Arnold Rothstein until 2013. Scorsese also directed him in Hugo (2011). Further roles followed in Lincoln, Hitchcock and Blue Jasmine, several of them portraying real figures.

In the years after, he moved between large-scale productions and author-driven cinema. He played Griffin in Men in Black 3 and the rival Nicodemus West in Doctor Strange and its sequel, and appeared in The Shape of Water (2017). On television he has worked on Fargo, Your Honor and The Staircase, and he received Emmy nominations for Dopesick. His career combines stage, screen and television with the reputation of a dependable ensemble performer, and he remains a steady presence in American film and TV.

Key films

A Serious Man (2009): Larry Gopnik, the role that made him a leading man on screen.
Hugo (2011): the film historian René Tabard in Martin Scorsese's family adventure.
Lincoln (2012): Democratic congressman George Yeaman in Steven Spielberg's historical drama.
The Shape of Water (2017): a supporting role in Guillermo del Toro's Oscar-winning fantasy.
The Post (2017): Abe Rosenthal, one of the newspaper editors in the story of the Pentagon Papers.

Trivia

Yiddish learned by ear

For his first audition for A Serious Man he had to learn a Yiddish scene phonetically. The Coens ultimately cast him in a different role, for which he prepared three scenes for each character.