Tim Blake Nelson Biography

Timothy Blake Nelson (born May 11, 1964) is an American actor, writer and director. His most famous roles include Delmar O'Donnell in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), Dr. Pendanski in Holes (2003), Daniel "Danny" Dalton Jr. in Syriana (2005), and Dr. Samuel Sterns in The Incredible Hulk (2008).

Early life

Nelson was born to a Jewish family in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Ruth (ne Kaiser) Nelson, who is a noted social activist and philanthropist in Tulsa, and Don Nelson, a geologist/wildcatter. His uncle is businessman George Kaiser.

His maternal grandparents, who were from Germany, escaped the Nazis shortly before World War II, moving to Britain in 1938 and immigrating to the United States in 1941. His father's family were Russian Jewish emigrants.

Nelson attended the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute at Quartz Mountain Resort Arts and Conference Center in Lone Wolf, Oklahoma.

Nelson is a 1982 graduate of Holland Hall School in Tulsa, and a graduate of Brown University, where he was a Classics major as well as Senior Orator for his class of 1986. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Nelson won the Workman/Driskoll award for excellence in Classical Studies. He graduated from Juilliard in 1990, a member of Group 19.

Career

Nelson's debut play, Eye of God, was produced at Seattle Repertory Theatre in 1992. The Grey Zone premiered at MCC Theater in New York in 1996, where his 1998 work Anadarko was produced. He was a co-star of the sketch comedy show The Unnaturals, which ran on HA! (later CTV, and would turn into Comedy Central) between 1989 and 1991, alongside Paul Zaloom, John Mariano and Siobhan Fallon Hogan.

Nelson has appeared as an actor in film, TV and theatre. He had a featured role as Delmar in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou?. According to directors Joel and Ethan Coen, he was the only one in the cast or crew who had read Homer's Odyssey, a story upon which the film is loosely based. He sang "In the Jailhouse Now" on the film's soundtrack (which received a Grammy for Album of the Year in 2001). He played Samuel Sterns in the 2008 film The Incredible Hulk.

Nelson narrated the 2001 audiobook At the Altar of Speed: The Fast Life and Tragic Death of Dale Earnhardt, Sr.. He appeared on stage extensively off-Broadway in New York at theatres including Manhattan Theater Club, Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Class Company, Soho Repertory Theater, New York Theater Workshop, and Central Park's Open Air Theater in the Shakespeare plays Richard III, Troilus and Cressida, and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

He has directed film versions of his plays The Grey Zone and Eye of God (for which he received an Independent Spirit Awards nomination for the Someone to Watch Award), as well as writing and directing two original screenplays: 1998's Kansas and Leaves of Grass which was released in 2009. He directed the film O, based on Othello and set in a modern-day high school.

He received, for Eye of God, the Tokyo Bronze Prize at the Tokyo International Film Festival (1997) and the American Independent Award at the Seattle International Film Festival (1997); for O, the Best Director Award at the Seattle International Film Festival (2001); and for The Grey Zone, the National Board of Review's Freedom of Expression Award (2002). He is on the Board of Directors for The Actors Center in New York City, as well as Soho Rep Theatre.

Nelson guest-starred on the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation season 10 episode "Working Stiffs". In the episode "My Brother's Bomber" (aired September 29, 2015) of the PBS investigative series Frontline, he talked about the loss of his friend David Dornstein in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Personal life

Nelson currently resides in New York City with his wife, Lisa Benavides, and their three sons. On May 8, 2009, he was inducted as an honorary member of the University of Tulsa's Beta of Oklahoma chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa national collegiate honor society.

Filmography

Actor

Film

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1992	This Is My Life	Dennis
1993	Motel Blue 19	Adult Luther (voice)	Uncredited
1994	Amateur	Young Detective
1995	Heavyweights	Roger Johnson
1996	Joe's Apartment	Cockroach (voice)
1997	Donnie Brasco	FBI Technician
1997	Prix Fixe	Busboy	Short film
1998	The Thin Red Line	Pvt. Tills
2000	Hamlet	Flight Captain
2000	O Brother, Where Art Thou?	Delmar O'Donnell
2002	The Good Girl	Bubba
2002	Cherish	Daly
2002	Minority Report	Gideon
2003	A Foreign Affair	Jake Adams
2003	Holes	Dr. Pendanski
2003	Wonderland	Billy Deverell
2004	Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed	Doctor Johnathan Jacobo
2004	The Last Shot	Marshal Paris
2004	Bereft	Dennis
2004	Meet the Fockers	Officer LeFlore
2005	The Amateurs	Barney Macklehatton
2005	My Suicidal Sweetheart	Various
2005	The Big White	Gary
2005	Syriana	Danny Dalton
2006	Come Early Morning	Uncle Tim
2006	The Darwin Awards	Perp
2006	Hoot	Curly
2006	Fido	Mr. Theopolis
2007	The Astronaut Farmer	Kevin Munchak
2008	The Incredible Hulk	Samuel Sterns
2008	American Violet	David Cohen
2009	Saint John of Las Vegas	Militant Ned
2009	Leaves of Grass	Bolger
2011	Flypaper	Peanut Butter
2011	Yelling to the Sky	Coleman
2011	Detachment	Mr. Wiatt
2011	The Big Year	Fuchs
2012	Big Miracle	Pat Lafaytette
2012	Lincoln	Richard Schell
2013	Blue Caprice	Ray
2013	As I Lay Dying	Anse
2013	Child of God	Sheriff Fate
2013	Snake and Mongoose	Mike McAllister
2014	The Homesman	Freighter
2014	The Sound and the Fury	Father
2014	Kill the Messenger	Alan Fenster
2015	Anesthesia	Adam Zarrow
2015	Fantastic Four	Dr. Allen
2016	The Confirmation	Vaughn
2016	Colossal	Garth
2016	Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk	Wayne Pfister
2017	Deidra & Laney Rob a Train	Truman
2017	The Vanishing of Sidney Hall	Johan Tidemand
2017	The Institute	Dr. Lemelle
2018	Monster	Leroy Sawicki
2018	The Ballad of Buster Scruggs	Buster Scruggs	Completed
2019	The Hustle	Portnoy	Post-production
TBA	The Long Home	Hovington	Post-production
TBA	Bukowski	Henry Bukowski	Post-production
TBA	Angel Has Fallen	Vice President Kirby	Post-production
TBA	The Torture Report		Post-production

Television

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1989-91	The Unnaturals	Reoccurring characters
1995	House of Buggin'	Kidnapper	Episode: "The Paco Vasquez Story"
1996	Dead Man's Walk	Johnny Carthage	Miniseries, 3 episodes
2005	Stella	Mountain Man	Episode: "Camping"
2005	Warm Springs	Tom Loyless	TV film
2009	CSI: Crime Scene Investigation	Paulie Krill	Episode: "Working Stiffs"
2011	CHAOS	Casey Malick	13 episodes
2011	Modern Family	Hank	Episode: "Dude Ranch"
2012-15	Black Dynamite	Chief McGillihorn (voice)	4 episodes
2014	Klondike	Meeker	6 episodes
2015	Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt	Randy	3 episodes
2017	Wormwood	Sidney Gottlieb	4 episodes
2018	Dallas & Robo	The Woodsman (voice)	8 episodes

Director

• Eye of God (1997)
• Kansas (1998)
• O (2001)
• The Grey Zone (2001)
• Haskett's Chance (2006) (TV)
• Leaves of Grass (2009)
• Anesthesia (2015)