Michael Emerson Biography

Michael Emerson (born September 7, 1954) is an American film and television character actor who is perhaps best known for his roles as serial killer William Hinks in The Practice, Benjamin Linus on Lost, and as Harold Finch on the CBS series Person of Interest.

Early life

Emerson was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the son of Carol (ne Hansen) and Ronald H. "Ron" Emerson. He grew up in the nearby town of Toledo, Iowa, where he attended South Tama County High School. In 1976, after graduating from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where he studied theater and art, he moved to New York City. Unable to find acting work, he took retail jobs and worked as a freelance illustrator. In 1986, he moved with his first wife to Jacksonville, Florida. There, from 1986 to 1993, he appeared in local productions at Theater Jacksonville and The Players by the Sea and worked as a director and teacher at Flagler College.

Career

Emerson considered forgoing a career in acting in favor of a more stable vocation in teaching. He decided instead to further his studies with a Master of Fine Arts that might also introduce him to theatre professionals and directors in his chosen trade. In 1993, he enrolled in the Alabama Shakespeare Festival's University of Alabama-sponsored Master of Fine Arts/Professional Actor Training program; and, upon graduating in 1995, he returned to New York where he appeared in the annual Alabama Shakespeare Festival showcase.

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

In September 2001, Emerson won an Emmy Award as "Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series", for playing serial killer William Hinks in several episodes of The Practice.

In 2006, Emerson began a guest-star role as Benjamin Linus on the serial drama television series Lost. This casting was a result of his work on The Practice because the Lost producers liked his work there and thought he was a good fit for the character they were developing. Emerson was originally set to appear in a small number of episodes, then returned for Season 3 as a main cast member and eventually became a main antagonist of the program. He received an Emmy nomination in the "Outstanding Supporting Actor" category in 2007 for his work in the third season and was nominated again in 2008 for his role in the fourth season. He won the award in 2009 after being nominated for his role in the fifth season. Emerson was nominated in 2009 for a Golden Globe in the "Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role" category. He was nominated for an Emmy for each season in which he was listed in the main cast.

Emerson met actress Carrie Preston (graduate of the prestigious drama programs from The University of Evansville and Juilliard), while he was performing in a stage production of Hamlet in Alabama. They married in September 1998, and both Emerson and his wife starred in Straight-Jacket (2004). On Lost, Preston portrayed Emily Linus, Emerson's character's mother, in the flashback sequences of the episode "The Man Behind the Curtain". The two teamed up again, with Emerson portraying Preston's gay next-door neighbor, in the film Ready? OK! (2008). According to a 2009 interview, Emerson is also interested in making a guest appearance with Preston on the TV series True Blood, where she plays waitress Arlene. Most recently, she has appeared in several episodes of Person of Interest as Grace Hendricks, the former fiance of Emerson's character, Harold Finch.

On July 31, 2010, Emerson and Preston read A. R. Gurney's Love Letters, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, at the Charleston Stage. They performed it as a fundraiser for the Stage, a South Carolina theatre. The reading was followed by a brief and intimate Question and Answer session.

Emerson was set to reunite with former Lost cast member and friend Terry O'Quinn, in a comedy-drama tentatively titled Odd Jobs, by J. J. Abrams. It was expected to start filming by the end of 2010, but further development of the show has been postponed. Emerson has since joined the cast of another Abrams series, Person of Interest, that debuted in September 2011 CBS. He plays a billionaire who teams up with a supposedly dead CIA agent to fight crime in New York City.

Philanthropy

He is a long-time supporter of the charities connected to the theatre community, including the Actors Fund, Broadway Cares, and Off-Off Broadway, in addition to publicly supported radio stations and Habitat.

Film and television

Film
Year	Film/TV	Role	Notes
1990	Orpheus Descending	Clown	TV movie
1997	The Journey	Michael
1998	The Impostors	Burtom's Assistant
	Grace & Glorie	Arnold Dudley	TV movie
	Playing by Heart	Bosco
1999	I'll Take You There	Tom
	For Love of the Game	Gallery Doorman
	Stark Raving Mad	Mr. Putnam	Episode: "The Psychic"
2000	The District	Man in Bar	Episode: "Pilot"
2000-2001	The Practice	William Hinks	6 episodes
2001	The Education of Max Bickford		Episode: "Herding Carts"
	Sounds from a Town I Love		TV movie
2002	The Laramie Project	Reverend
	Law & Order: Criminal Intent	Gerry Rankin	Episode: "Phantom"
	Unfaithful	Josh
	The X-Files	Oliver Martin	Episode: "Sunshine Days"
2003	Without a Trace	Stuart Wesmar	Episode: "Victory for Humanity"
	Skin	Scarpelli	Episode: "Secrets & Lies"
	Whoopi	F. Thomas Erickson	Episode: "The Fat and the Frivolous"
2004	Saw	Zep Hindle
	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Allan Shaye	Episode: "Ritual"
	Straight-Jacket	Victor
2005	29th and Gay	Gorilla
	The Inside	Marty Manning	Episode: "Pre-Filer"
	The Legend of Zorro	Harrigan
2006	Jumping Off Bridges	Frank Nelson
2006-2010	Lost	Ben Linus	Recurring character (season 2); Series regular (seasons 3-6)
2007	Lost: Missing Pieces	Ben Linus	Episodes: "King of the Castle" and "Room 23"
2008	Ready? OK!	Charlie New
2010	Goldstar, Ohio	Steve Harper
	Front Line	John Winthrop	Episode: "God In America"
2011	Parenthood	Andy Fitzgerald	Episode: "Amazing Andy and His Wonderful World of Bugs"
	G.I. Joe: Renegades	Doctor Venom	Episode: "The Anaconda Strain"
	Generator Rex	Alpha Nanite	Ben 10/Generator Rex: Heroes United
2011-present	Person of Interest	Harold Finch	Main cast
2012	The Dark Knight Returns Pt. 1	The Joker (voice)	Straight-to-Video
2013	The Dark Knight Returns Pt. 2	The Joker (voice)	Straight-to-Video

Theater

• Othello, University of North Florida
• Noises Off (as Gary), Theatre Jacksonville, 1986 or 1987
• Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare at the Met, 1987
• The Importance of Being Earnest, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, 1990
• Parts Unknown, Players-By-The-Sea Theatre, Jacksonville Beach, Florida, 1993
• Hamlet (as Hamlet), Players-By-The-Sea Theatre, Jacksonville Beach, Florida
• The Tempest (as Ferdinand), Alabama Shakespeare Festival, 1994 or 1995
• The Way of the World (as Lady Wishfort), Alabama Shakespeare Festival, 1994 or 1995
• Hamlet (as Rosencrantz), Alabama Shakespeare Festival, 1994 or 1995
• All's Well That Ends Well, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, 1994 or 1995
• Henry IV, Part 1, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, 1994 or 1995
• A Christmas Carol, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, 1994 or 1995
• The Crucible, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, 1994 or 1995
• Amadeus, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, 1995
• Androcles and the Lion, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, 1995 or 1996
• Gross Indecency: The Trials of Oscar Wilde (as Oscar Wilde), Minetta Lane Theatre, off-Broadway, 1997-1998
• The Misanthrope, Classic Stage Company, 1998
• The Iceman Cometh (as Willie Oban), Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 1999
• Give Me Your Answer, Do! (as David Knight), Gramercy Theatre, off-Broadway, 1999-2000
• Hedda Gabler (as George Tesman), Williamstown Theatre Festival, Main Stage, 2000
• Hedda Gabler (as George Tesman), Ambassador Theatre, Broadway, 2001-2002
• Only the End of the World (as Louis), Theatre 3, off-Broadway, 2002
• Frequency Hopping (as George Antheil), Hourglass Group, 2002
• Tartuffe (as Cleante), American Airlines Theatre, Broadway, 2003
• Measure for Measure (as Duke Vincentio), California Shakespeare Theater, Orinda, California, 2003
• Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, The Ridgefield Playhouse for Movies and the Performing Arts, 2004
• Hamlet (as Ghost, Claudius, Osric, and Guildenstern), McCarter Theatre Center, Princeton, New Jersey, 2005
• Bach at Leipzig (as Schott), New York Theatre Workshop, 2005
• Likeness, Primary Stages Theater (307 W. 38th Street), 2008
• Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (as Alexander), Chautauqua Theater Company, 2008
• Love Letters (as Andrew Makepeace Ladd, III), Charleston Stage, 2010

Other work

• In 2000, played the unnamed narrator character in the radio play adaptation of the Neil Gaiman short story, Murder Mysteries.
• In 2001, participated in a Woody Allen short called "Sounds From a Town I Love" which aired on television during The Concert for New York City and depicts people talking on their cellphones as they walk around New York City.
• 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 George Washington in Favorite Son, an experimental documentary film about the relationship between George Washington and Alexander Hamilton.
• In 2005, narrated audio 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 members, he participated in a play-reading session at the Tenney Theatre in Hawaii to raise money for the Honolulu Theatre for Youth.
• In 2009, narrated a reading of "Babar the Elephant" with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra.
• Co-narrated with Peter J. Fernandez, the audio book version of James Patterson's novel, Four Blind Mice.
• Co-narrated with John Rubinstein the audio book of the novel Private Sector by Brian Haig.
• Narrated the Neil Gaiman American Gods novella The Monarch of the Glen (from Fragile Things) in volume III of an audio book series called "Legends II: New Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy" .

Awards

Primetime Emmy Awards:

• Won - 53rd Primetime Emmy Awards (Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series) for playing "William Hinks" on The Practice, 2001.
• Nominated - 59th Primetime Emmy Awards (Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series) for portraying Ben Linus on Lost, 2007.
• Nominated - 60th Primetime Emmy Awards (Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series) for portraying Ben Linus on Lost, 2008.
• Won - 61st Primetime Emmy Awards (Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series) for portraying Ben Linus on Lost, 2009.
• Nominated - 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards (Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series) for portraying Ben Linus on Lost, 2010.

Golden Globe Awards:

• Nominated - 67th Golden Globe Awards (Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television) for portraying Ben Linus on LOST, 2010.

Saturn Awards:

• Won - 34th Saturn Awards (Best Supporting Television Actor) for portraying Ben Linus on Lost, 2008.
• Nominated - 35th Saturn Awards (Best Supporting Television Actor) for portraying Ben Linus on Lost, 2009.
• Nominated - 36th Saturn Awards (Best Supporting Television Actor) for portraying Ben Linus on Lost, 2010.
• Nominated - 37th Saturn Awards (Best Supporting Television Actor) for portraying Ben Linus on Lost, 2011.