Bill Pullman

Before anyone knew him as a president, Bill Pullman was teaching theater at Montana State University, where his students apparently talked him into trying Hollywood. The romantic-lead run in Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and While You Were Sleeping (1995) made him the agreeable everyman in a decade full of them. Then Independence Day came along in 1996, and a pre-battle speech delivered in a flight suit launched one of the most parodied moments in 90s cinema. He didn't write the speech, but he sold it like he meant every word.

The 90s leading-man phase gave way to character work nobody expected, and The Sinner is where he earned it back. As Detective Harry Ambrose across four seasons on USA Network (2017-2021), he held together an anthology series that changed its entire cast every year except for him. The show was the #1 new cable series of 2017 and earned him a SAG Award nomination. A 2023 Lifetime movie about Alex Murdaugh and a Spaceballs sequel casting him opposite his own son Lewis Pullman tells you he's not holding out for anything.

He lost his sense of smell and feeling in his left elbow at 21 from a head injury during a play rehearsal, which is the kind of detail that sounds invented but isn't. He co-owns a cattle ranch in Montana with his brother and converted a 1933 barn there into his family home. His son Lewis Pullman is also an actor, his daughter Maesa Pullman is a musician, and his wife Tamara Hurwitz is a modern dancer. The whole household works in the arts, which probably makes the holidays interesting.