Rise to Fame
A Harvard magna cum laude and Tony Award winner who nabbed the Tony just 18 days into his Broadway debut, that was already his pre-film resume. The real inflection came in 1982 when he played Roberta Muldoon, a transgender ex-NFL player, in The World According to Garp. It was the kind of role most actors of that era ran from, and it earned him an Oscar nomination. He followed it with another for Terms of Endearment, which he reportedly filmed in three days during a break from Footloose. Two Oscar nominations in two years.
In the Spotlight
Six Emmys across comedy, drama, and limited series (alien dad, serial killer, Winston Churchill) put him in a category most character actors don't reach. Now, at 80, he's cast as Dumbledore in HBO's eight-year Harry Potter commitment and won the Olivier Award in 2024 playing Roald Dahl in Giant. He reportedly considered dropping the Dumbledore role over J.K. Rowling's public positions on trans issues, then stayed on, saying the show is "on the side of the angels." Given that his first Oscar nomination came for playing a transgender character in 1982, that's a complicated position to hold, and he seems to know it.
Side Notes
Before acting took over, he studied History and Literature at Harvard, then came to theater on a Fulbright scholarship to London. The role of Frasier Crane was written with him in mind; he passed, Kelsey Grammer got it. He turned down the Joker in Tim Burton's Batman without fully grasping what he was walking away from. In his downtime, he writes children's books and records children's music albums. He's also an ordained minister who has officiated a wedding. The range on his resume (alien dad, serial killer, Churchill, Dahl, and now Dumbledore) suggests someone who treats acting as a collection problem.