Robert Sean Leonard
Encyclopedia
Robert Sean Leonard is an American actor, who has regularly starred in Broadway and off-Broadway productions. Since 2004 he has played the role of Dr. James Wilson
James Wilson (House)
James Evan Wilson, M.D., is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House. He is played by Robert Sean Leonard. The character first appears in the show's pilot episode when he introduces a medical case to Dr. Gregory House, the protagonist of the show. Wilson is Dr. House's only true friend,...

 on the TV series House
House (TV series)
House is an American television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House , an unconventional and misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in...

. He played Neil Perry in the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society
Dead Poets Society
Dead Poets Society is a 1989 American drama film directed by Peter Weir and starring Robin Williams. Set at the conservative and aristocratic Welton Academy in Vermont in 1959, it tells the story of an English teacher who inspires his students through his teaching of poetry.The script was written...

.

Early life and career

Leonard was born Robert Lawrence Leonard in Westwood, New Jersey
Westwood, New Jersey
Westwood is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 10,908....

, the son of Joyce P. (née Peterson), a nurse, and Robert Howard Leonard, a Spanish teacher. He grew up in Ridgewood
Ridgewood, New Jersey
Ridgewood is a village in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the village population was 24,958. Ridgewood is an affluent suburban bedroom community of New York City, located approximately northwest of Midtown Manhattan.The Village of Ridgewood was...

, where he attended Ridgewood High School
Ridgewood High School (New Jersey)
Ridgewood High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school serving students from Ridgewood, in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States, operating as part of the Ridgewood Public Schools....

 before moving on to Fordham University
Fordham University
Fordham University is a private, nonprofit, coeducational research university in the United States, with three campuses in and around New York City. It was founded by the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York in 1841 as St...

 and later Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 School of General Studies and Continuing Education (GS). Because he shares his birth name with another actor, he uses the name of his brother Sean for his Screen Actors Guild
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...

 membership.

Leonard is a three-time Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 nominee (1993, 2001 and 2003), winning in 2001 (Best Actor - Featured Play) for his role as A. E. Housman
A. E. Housman
Alfred Edward Housman , usually known as A. E. Housman, was an English classical scholar and poet, best known to the general public for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. Lyrical and almost epigrammatic in form, the poems were mostly written before 1900...

 in Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...

's The Invention of Love
The Invention of Love
The Invention of Love is a 1997 play by Tom Stoppard portraying the life of poet A.E. Housman, focusing specifically on his personal life and love for a college classmate. The play is written from the viewpoint of Housman dealing with his memories towards the end of his life and contains many...

. He had a prior association with Stoppard's work, creating the role of Valentine in the New York premiere of Arcadia
Arcadia
Arcadia is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the central and eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas. In Greek mythology, it was the home of the god Pan...

 at Lincoln Center in 1995. His 2003 Tony nomination was for his portrayal of Edmund Tyrone in a well-received revival of Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...

's Long Day's Journey Into Night
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Long Day's Journey Into Night is a 1956 drama in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play is widely considered to be his masterwork...

 that co-starred Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...

 and Brian Dennehy
Brian Dennehy
Brian Mannion Dennehy is an American actor of film, stage and screen.-Early years:Dennehy was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Hannah and Edward Dennehy, who was a wire service editor for the Associated Press; he has two brothers, Michael and Edward. Dennehy is of Irish ancestry and was...

. Leonard has also appeared in Broadway musical productions, in 2001 replacing Craig Bierko
Craig Bierko
Craig Philip Bierko is an American actor and singer.-Early life:Bierko was born in Rye Brook, New York, the son of Pat and Rex Bierko, who ran a local community theatre. Bierko's mother was a Jewish convert to Roman Catholicism...

 as the lead performer in a successful revival of The Music Man
The Music Man
The Music Man is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson, based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. The plot concerns con man Harold Hill, who poses as a boys' band organizer and leader and sells band instruments and uniforms to naive townsfolk before skipping town with...

. On February 8, 2011 it was announced that Leonard will co-star as Paul Verrall in the 2011 Broadway revival of Born Yesterday
Born Yesterday
Born Yesterday is a play written by Garson Kanin which premiered on Broadway in 1946, starring Judy Holliday as Billie Dawn. The play was adapted intoa successful 1950 film of the same name.- Plot :...

 beginning in March.

In 1997 Leonard received rave reviews for his role in the Christopher Reeve
Christopher Reeve
Christopher D'Olier Reeve was an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, author and activist...

-directed television film, In the Gloaming
In the Gloaming
In the Gloaming is a 1997 HBO film directed by Christopher Reeve based on a story written by Alice Elliott Dark. Starring Glenn Close, Bridget Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg and Robert Sean Leonard. The film borrows its title from the popular 1877 song "In the Gloaming" by Annie Fortescue Harrison and Meta...

. Entertainment Weekly said that, in the film, Leonard "does a first-rate job of juggling Danny's mixture of despair, neediness, and mordant jokiness."

Since 2004, he has played Dr. James Wilson
James Wilson (House)
James Evan Wilson, M.D., is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House. He is played by Robert Sean Leonard. The character first appears in the show's pilot episode when he introduces a medical case to Dr. Gregory House, the protagonist of the show. Wilson is Dr. House's only true friend,...

, head of the oncology
Oncology
Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with cancer...

 department, on the FOX
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...

 TV series House
House (TV series)
House is an American television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House , an unconventional and misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in...

. In 2007, Leonard appeared on Entertainment's Weeklys 100 list as "Dr. Underrated."

Leonard maintains a good friendship with House
House (TV series)
House is an American television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House , an unconventional and misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in...

 co-star Hugh Laurie
Hugh Laurie
James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE , better known as Hugh Laurie , is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director...

, as well as childhood friend, Dead Poets Society
Dead Poets Society
Dead Poets Society is a 1989 American drama film directed by Peter Weir and starring Robin Williams. Set at the conservative and aristocratic Welton Academy in Vermont in 1959, it tells the story of an English teacher who inspires his students through his teaching of poetry.The script was written...

 and Tape
Tape (film)
Tape is a 2001 drama film directed by Richard Linklater and written by Stephen Belber, based on his play of the same name. It stars Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard, and Uma Thurman. The entire film takes place in real-time.- Plot :...

 co-star, Ethan Hawke
Ethan Hawke
Ethan Green Hawke is an American actor, writer and director. He made his feature film debut in 1985 with the science fiction movie Explorers, before making a supporting appearance in the 1989 drama Dead Poets Society which is considered his breakthrough role...

 with whom he founded the Malaparte
Malaparte (theater company)
Malaparte was a nonprofit American theater company founded in 1991 and based in New York City.-A Joke:* adapted from Ma non e una cosa seria by Luigi Pirandello by Keith Bunin, directed by Keith Bunin....

 theater company, along with James Waterston
James Waterston
James Waterston is an American film and television actor whose first role was playing Gerard Pitts in the 1989 film Dead Poets Society....

, Steve Zahn
Steve Zahn
-Early life:Zahn was born in Marshall, Minnesota, the son of Zelda, who worked for the YMCA, and Carleton E. Zahn, a retired Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor. Zahn spent part of his childhood in Mankato, Minnesota, attending Kennedy Elementary School...

, and Frank Whaley
Frank Whaley
Frank Joseph Whaley is an American film and television actor known for his roles in independent films.-Personal life:Whaley was born in Syracuse, New York, the son of Josephine and Robert W. Whaley, Sr. He is half-Irish and half-Sicilian and grew up in Syracuse. He has two sisters and an older...

.

Filmography

Year Title Role Notes
1986 The Manhattan Project  Max
1988 My Best Friend Is a Vampire
My Best Friend Is a Vampire
My Best Friend Is a Vampire is a 1987 American horror-comedy film about a newly made vampire who is trying to live as a "good" vampire and not feed on humans. Jeremy is played by Robert Sean Leonard and Rene Auberjonois also stars as Jeremy's vampire guidance counsel...

 
Jeremy Capello
1989 Dead Poets Society
Dead Poets Society
Dead Poets Society is a 1989 American drama film directed by Peter Weir and starring Robin Williams. Set at the conservative and aristocratic Welton Academy in Vermont in 1959, it tells the story of an English teacher who inspires his students through his teaching of poetry.The script was written...

 
Neil Perry
1990 Mr. & Mrs. Bridge
Mr. and Mrs. Bridge
Mr. & Mrs. Bridge is a 1990 Merchant Ivory film based on the novels by Evan S. Connell of the same name. It is directed by James Ivory, with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and produced by Ismail Merchant.-Plot:...

 
Douglas Bridge
1991 Married to It
Married to It
Married to It is a 1991 film directed by Arthur Hiller about three New York City couples with disparate careers, ages, and lifestyles who nonetheless bond through their mutual connection to a local private school. As they help to stage a school pageant with a 1960s theme, each couple begins to...

 
Chuck Bishop
1993 Swing Kids
Swing Kids (film)
Swing Kids is a film produced in 1993, directed by Thomas Carter and starring Christian Bale, Robert Sean Leonard and Kenneth Branagh. The runtime is approximately 112 minutes. The film is considered as being part of the Lindy Hop revival of the 1980s and 1990s...

 
Peter Müller
Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing (film)
Much Ado About Nothing is a 1993 British/American romantic comedy film based on William Shakespeare's play. It was adapted for the screen and directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also played the role of Benedick....

 
Claudio
The Age of Innocence
The Age of Innocence (film)
The Age of Innocence is a 1993 American film adaptation of Edith Wharton's 1920 novel of the same name. The film was released by Columbia Pictures, directed by Martin Scorsese, and stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Winona Ryder....

 
Ted Archer
1994 Safe Passage
Safe Passage (film)
Safe Passage is a 1994 English language drama film starring Susan Sarandon, and featuring Nick Stahl, Sam Shepard, Sean Astin and Jason London...

 
Alfred Singer
1996 The Boys Next Door
The Boys Next Door (1996 film)
The Boys Next Door is a 1996 television movie based on a play by Tom Griffin which was published in 1983 under the title Damaged Hearts, Broken Flowers and again in 1988 under the title The Boys Next Door...

 
Barry Klemper TV
Killer: A Journal of Murder
Killer: A Journal of Murder
Killer: A Journal Of Murder is a 1996 American film. It is based on the life of serial killer Carl Panzram, and uses passages of his biography.-Plot outline:...

 
Henry Lesser
I Love You, I Love You Not
I Love You, I Love You Not
I Love You, I Love You Not is a 1996 romantic drama film directed by Billy Hopkins and written by Wendy Kesselman.-Plot:The film is told through the stories of two women: Nana, a grandmother, and Daisy, her granddaughter...

 
Angel of Death
1997 In the Gloaming
In the Gloaming
In the Gloaming is a 1997 HBO film directed by Christopher Reeve based on a story written by Alice Elliott Dark. Starring Glenn Close, Bridget Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg and Robert Sean Leonard. The film borrows its title from the popular 1877 song "In the Gloaming" by Annie Fortescue Harrison and Meta...

 
Danny TV
1998 Standoff
Standoff
A standoff is used in mechanics and electronics to separate two parts from one another. Standoffs can be many shapes and sizes and made of many different materials. Insulating standoffs may keep two parts from touching each other, thereby preventing an electronic short...

 
Jamie Doolin
The Last Days of Disco
The Last Days of Disco
The Last Days of Disco is a 1998 sardonic comedy-drama film written and directed by Whit Stillman and loosely based on his travels and experiences in various nightclubs in Manhattan, including Studio 54. The film concerns a group of Ivy League and Hampshire graduates falling in and out of love in...

 
Tom Platt
Ground Control
Ground Control (film)
Ground Control is a 1998 disaster thriller film starring Kiefer Sutherland.-Synopsis:Chicago air traffic controller Jack Harris, though cleared of responsibility for a major Transair crash, killing all 174 aboard, gives up the job and designs air control software. Five years later, his...

 
Cruise
2001 Tape  Jon Salter
A Glimpse of Hell
A Glimpse of Hell (film)
A Glimpse of Hell is a drama film originally made for TV and was initially shown on the FX TV network. It was released in the United States on March 18, 2001. It was filmed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and stars James Caan, Robert Sean Leonard, and Daniel Roebuck. It was directed by Mikael...

 
Lt. Dan Meyer TV
Driven
Driven
Driven is a 2001 film directed by Renny Harlin and starring Sylvester Stallone, who also wrote and produced. It centers on a young racing driver's effort to win the ChampCar World Series...

 
Demille Bly
Chelsea Walls
Chelsea Walls
Chelsea Walls is an American independent film directed by Ethan Hawke and released by Lions Gate Entertainment. It stars Kris Kristofferson, Uma Thurman, Rosario Dawson, and Robert Sean Leonard among others, with original score by Jeff Tweedy of Wilco. The story takes place in the historic Chelsea...

 
Terry Olsen
2003 The I Inside
The i Inside
The I Inside is a 2003 psychological thriller directed by Roland Suso Richter. It was written by Michael Cooney based on his own play Point of Death. This film has no connection with the science-fiction novel, The I Inside, by Alan Dean Foster....

 
Peter Cable
A Painted House
A Painted House
A Painted House is a February 2001 novel by American author John Grisham.Inspired by his childhood in Arkansas, it is Grisham's first major work outside the legal thriller genre in which he established himself...

 
Jesse Chandler TV
Malcolm In the Middle
Malcolm in the Middle
Malcolm in the Middle is an American television sitcom created by Linwood Boomer for the Fox Network. The series was first broadcast on January 9, 2000, and ended its six-and-a-half-year run on May 14, 2006, after seven seasons and 151 episodes...

 
An Agent (Season 5 Episode 12) TV
2004–present House
House (TV series)
House is an American television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House , an unconventional and misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in...

 
Dr. James Wilson
James Wilson (House)
James Evan Wilson, M.D., is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House. He is played by Robert Sean Leonard. The character first appears in the show's pilot episode when he introduces a medical case to Dr. Gregory House, the protagonist of the show. Wilson is Dr. House's only true friend,...

 
TV series

Theatre credits

Year Title Role Notes
1986 Brighton Beach Memoirs
Brighton Beach Memoirs
Brighton Beach Memoirs is a semi-autobiographical play by Neil Simon, the first chapter in what is known as his Eugene trilogy. It precedes Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound.-Characters:*Eugene Morris Jerome, almost 15...

 
Eugene Jerome replacement for Matthew Broderick
Matthew Broderick
Matthew Broderick is an American film and stage actor who, among other roles, played the title character in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Adult Simba in The Lion King film series, and Leo Bloom in the film and Broadway productions of The Producers.He has won two Tony Awards, one in 1983 for his...

1987–1988 Breaking the Code
Breaking the Code
Breaking the Code is a 1986 play by Hugh Whitemore about British mathematician Alan Turing, who was a key player in the breaking of the German Enigma code at Bletchley Park during World War II...

 
Christopher Morcom
1991 The Speed of Darkness
The Speed of Darkness (play)
The Speed of Darkness is a play written by Steve Tesich.-Productions:The play received its world premiere at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, with Bill Raymond as Joe, Stephen Lang as Lou, and Lee Guthrie as Anne....

 
Eddie
1993 Candida
Candida (play)
Candida, a comedy by playwright George Bernard Shaw, was first published in 1898, as part of his Plays Pleasant. The central characters are clergyman James Morell, his wife Candida and a youthful poet, Eugene Marchbanks, who tries to win Candida's affections. The play questions Victorian notions...

 
Eugene Marchbanks
1994 Philadelphia, Here I Come!  Gareth O'Donnell in Private
1995 Arcadia
Arcadia (play)
Arcadia is a 1993 play by Tom Stoppard concerning the relationship between past and present and between order and disorder and the certainty of knowledge...

 
Valentine Coverly
1999 The Iceman Cometh
The Iceman Cometh
The Iceman Cometh is a play written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1939. First published in 1940 the play premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on 9 October 1946, directed by Eddie Dowling where it ran for 136 performances to close on 15 March 1947.-Characters:* Night Hawk-...

 
Don Parritt
2000–2001 The Music Man
The Music Man
The Music Man is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson, based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. The plot concerns con man Harold Hill, who poses as a boys' band organizer and leader and sells band instruments and uniforms to naive townsfolk before skipping town with...

 
Harold Hill musical; replacement for Craig Bierko
Craig Bierko
Craig Philip Bierko is an American actor and singer.-Early life:Bierko was born in Rye Brook, New York, the son of Pat and Rex Bierko, who ran a local community theatre. Bierko's mother was a Jewish convert to Roman Catholicism...

2001 The Invention of Love
The Invention of Love
The Invention of Love is a 1997 play by Tom Stoppard portraying the life of poet A.E. Housman, focusing specifically on his personal life and love for a college classmate. The play is written from the viewpoint of Housman dealing with his memories towards the end of his life and contains many...

 
A. E. Housman
A. E. Housman
Alfred Edward Housman , usually known as A. E. Housman, was an English classical scholar and poet, best known to the general public for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. Lyrical and almost epigrammatic in form, the poems were mostly written before 1900...

, aged 18 to 26
2003 Long Day's Journey into Night
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Long Day's Journey Into Night is a 1956 drama in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play is widely considered to be his masterwork...

 
Edmund Tyrone
2003 The Violet Hour
The Violet Hour
The Violet Hour is a play by Richard Greenberg. It was commissioned by and originally produced by South Coast Repertory with Hamish Linklater as Seavering and Mario Cantone as Gidger. It received its Broadway debut on November 6, 2003 when the Manhattan Theatre Club produced it as the first play...

 
John Pace Seavering
2011 Born Yesterday
Born Yesterday
Born Yesterday is a play written by Garson Kanin which premiered on Broadway in 1946, starring Judy Holliday as Billie Dawn. The play was adapted intoa successful 1950 film of the same name.- Plot :...

 
Paul Verrall

Awards and nominations

Awards
  • 2001: Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play
    Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play
    This is a list of the winners and nominations of Tony Award for the Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play. The award has been presented since 1949.-1950s:* 1951: Eli Wallach – The Rose Tattoo* 1952: John Cromwell – Point of No Return...

     - The Invention of Love
    The Invention of Love
    The Invention of Love is a 1997 play by Tom Stoppard portraying the life of poet A.E. Housman, focusing specifically on his personal life and love for a college classmate. The play is written from the viewpoint of Housman dealing with his memories towards the end of his life and contains many...



Nominations
  • 1993: Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play - Candida
    Candida (play)
    Candida, a comedy by playwright George Bernard Shaw, was first published in 1898, as part of his Plays Pleasant. The central characters are clergyman James Morell, his wife Candida and a youthful poet, Eugene Marchbanks, who tries to win Candida's affections. The play questions Victorian notions...

  • 2003: Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play - Long Day's Journey into Night
    Long Day's Journey Into Night
    Long Day's Journey Into Night is a 1956 drama in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play is widely considered to be his masterwork...

  • 2011: People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Doctor - House M.D.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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