Billy Crudup

William Gaither Crudup (/ˈkruːdəp/; born July 8, 1968)^[1] is an American actor. He is a four-time Tony Award nominee, winning once for his performance in Tom Stoppard's play The Coast of Utopia in 2007. He has starred in numerous high-profile films, including Without Limits (1998), Almost Famous (2000), Big Fish (2003), Mission: Impossible III (2006), Watchmen (2009), Public Enemies (2009), The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015), Jackie (2016), and Alien: Covenant (2017), in both lead and supporting roles. He has been nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead for his performance in Jesus' Son, and received two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations as part of an ensemble cast for Almost Famous and Spotlight, winning for the latter.

Billy Crudup
Crudup in 2015
Born	William Gaither Crudup (1968-07-08) July 8, 1968 (age 54) Manhasset, New York, U.S.
Education	University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (BA) New York University (MFA)
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1989–present
Partner(s)	Mary-Louise Parker (1996–2004) Claire Danes (2004–2006) Naomi Watts (2017–present)
Children	1

Crudup starred in the streaming television series Gypsy (2017) and The Morning Show (2019), the latter of which earned him a Primetime Emmy Award and a Critics' Choice Television Award. In 2023, he began starring in the Apple TV+ science fiction dramedy series Hello Tomorrow!.

Early life

Crudup was born in Manhasset, New York. His parents, Georgann (née Gaither) and Thomas Henry Crudup III divorced during his childhood, and later remarried, before divorcing a second time.^[2][3][4] Crudup has spoken of his late father, who died in 2005, as an "incessant gambler and hustler salesman" who continuously sought "to hit the jackpot" throughout his life.^[5]

On his father's side, he is a descendant of Congressman Josiah Crudup of North Carolina.^[6] His maternal grandfather was William Cotter "Billy" Gaither, Jr., a well-known Florida trial lawyer, and his maternal grandmother later remarried to Episcopal bishop James Duncan.^[7][8][9]

The middle-born of three brothers, Crudup's brothers, Tommy and Brooks, are both producers. He left New York with his family when he was about eight years old, first living in Texas, then in Florida. He graduated from Saint Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1986.

Crudup attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received an undergraduate degree, and he continued his passion for acting with the undergraduate acting company, LAB! Theatre. He also acted for UNC-STV's most popular show, General College. He was a member of the Beta Chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon. He then studied at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts graduate acting program, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1994.

Career

Film and television

Crudup began acting in films such as 1996's Sleepers, 1997's Inventing the Abbotts, and 1998's Without Limits, where he played the role of running legend and Olympian Steve Prefontaine. His first role in an animated feature was in 1999's English release of Princess Mononoke, in which he starred as Ashitaka. He then played lead guitarist Russell Hammond from Stillwater, the fictional band at the center of Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (2000). In 2006's The Good Shepherd, he played British spy Arch Cummings, a stand-in for Kim Philby. The same year, he played a supporting role in Mission: Impossible III. In 2007, he played the leading role of Henry Roth in the film Dedication.

Crudup completed filming Watchmen with director Zack Snyder in Vancouver, British Columbia. He portrayed the superhero Doctor Manhattan. He portrayed former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner in a TV film about 2008's financial crisis, Too Big to Fail (2011). Crudup stars in the Apple TV+ series The Morning Show, for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award in 2020.

Stage

 

Crudup in New York City, January 2011

A year after graduating from Tisch, Crudup made his debut on Broadway in the Lincoln Center Theater production of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia.^{[citation needed]}

Crudup received a 2002 Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play for his performance as the title character in The Elephant Man on Broadway, as well as a 2005 nomination for his role as Katurian in the Broadway production of The Pillowman, also starring Jeff Goldblum, which closed on September 18, 2005. From October 2006 through May 2007, he was featured in the first two parts of The Coast of Utopia by Tom Stoppard at Lincoln Center, playing literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, for which he received a 2007 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.^[10]

He starred in The Metal Children, an off-Broadway play written and directed by Adam Rapp in 2010.^[11]

In 2011, Crudup received a Tony Award nomination for Featured Actor in a Play for his role in the Broadway revival of Arcadia.^[12]

In August 2013, he co-starred with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in the Harold Pinter play No Man's Land as well as in Waiting for Godot at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. The shows transferred to The Cort Theatre in New York City, where they ran in repertory until March 2014.^[13]

In November 2017, he starred in the world premiere of David Cale's one-man play Harry Clarke at Vineyard Theatre. It moved to the Minetta Lane Theatre the following spring.^[14]

Other work

From 1998 to 2005, Crudup was the narrator for the U.S. television ad campaign "Priceless" for Mastercard. In the ads, the narrator (Crudup) lists the prices of two goods or services, then lists some third, intangible benefit gained from those purchases and concludes, "priceless". He said in 2005 that appearing in the ads "changed my life", in that they gave him the financial freedom to pursue the acting work that he wanted to do.^[15]

He appeared as Zartan in the 2009 parody video The Ballad of G.I. Joe on the website Funny or Die.

Personal life

From 1996 to November 2003, Crudup was in a relationship with actress Mary-Louise Parker. She was seven months pregnant with their son, born in January 2004, when Crudup ended their relationship and began dating actress Claire Danes.^[16] Crudup and Danes separated in 2006.^[17][18] Since 2017, Crudup has been dating Australian actress Naomi Watts after they met on the set of the Netflix drama series Gypsy.^[19]

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1996	Sleepers	Tommy
	Everyone Says I Love You	Ken
1997	Inventing the Abbotts	Jacey Holt
	Grind	Eddie / Terry's brother
1998	Monument Ave.	Teddy Timmons
	Without Limits	Steve Prefontaine
	The Hi-Lo Country	Pete Calder
1999	Princess Mononoke	Ashitaka (voice)	English dub
	Jesus' Son	FH
2000	Waking the Dead	Fielding Pierce
	Almost Famous	Russell Hammond
2001	World Traveler	Cal
	Charlotte Gray	Julien Levade
2003	Big Fish	Will Bloom
	Stage Beauty	Ned Kynaston
2005	Trust the Man	Tobey
2006	Mission: Impossible III	Musgrave
	The Good Shepherd	Arch Cummings
2007	Dedication	Henry Roth
2008	Pretty Bird	Curtis Prentiss
2009	Watchmen	Jon Osterman / Dr. Manhattan
	Public Enemies	J. Edgar Hoover
2010	Eat Pray Love	Stephen
2011	Thin Ice	Randy
	Too Big to Fail	Timothy Geithner	Television film
2013	Blood Ties	Frank
2014	Rudderless	Sam
	The Longest Week	Dylan Tate
	Glass Chin	J.J. Cook
2015	The Stanford Prison Experiment	Dr. Philip Zimbardo
	Spotlight	Eric MacLeish
2016	Youth in Oregon	Brian
	Jackie	The Journalist
	20th Century Women	William
2017	1 Mile to You	Coach K
	Alien: Covenant	Oram
	Justice League	Henry Allen
2019	After the Wedding	Oscar Carlson
	Where'd You Go, Bernadette	Elgie
2021	Die in a Gunfight	Narrator
	Donnybrook	Victor Roberts	Short

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2017	Gypsy	Michael Holloway	Main role, 10 episodes
2019	At Home with Amy Sedaris	Dr. Raddish	Episode: "Halloween"^[20]
2019–present	The Morning Show	Cory Ellison	Main role, 20 episodes
2022	The Last Movie Stars	James Goldstone (voice)	Docuseries
2023	Hello Tomorrow!	Jack Billings	Main role

Short film

Year	Title	Role
2009	The Ballad of G.I. Joe	Zartan
2017	Alien: Covenant - Prologue: Last Supper^[21]	Christopher Oram

Stage

Year	Play	Role	Production	Notes
1994	America Dreaming	Robert	Vineyard Theatre
1995	Arcadia	Septimus Hodge	Lincoln Center Theatre
1996	Bus Stop	Bo Decker	Circle in the Square Theatre
1997	The Three Sisters	Staff Captain Solyony	Roundabout Theatre
1998	Oedipus	Oedipus	Blue Light Theatre Company
2001	Measure for Measure	Angelo	Public Theatre	Shakespeare in the Park
2002	The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui	Flake / Defense Counsel	National Actors Theatre
	The Elephant Man	John Merrick	Royale Theatre
2004	The 24 Hour Plays	Bobby	—	Staged reading
2005	The Pillowman	Katurian	Edwin Booth Theatre
2006–07	The Coast of Utopia: Part 1 – Voyage	Vissarion Belinsky	Lincoln Center Theatre
	The Coast of Utopia: Part 2 – Shipwreck
2009	The 24 Hour Plays	Billy	—	Staged reading
2010	The Metal Children	Tobin Falmouth	Vineyard Theatre
2011	Arcadia	Bernard Nightingale	Ethel Barrymore Theatre
2013	No Man's Land	Foster	Berkeley Repertory Theatre
			Cort Theatre
	Waiting for Godot	Lucky	Berkeley Repertory Theatre
			Cort Theatre
2017	Harry Clarke	Various	Vineyard Theatre
2018			Minetta Lane Theatre

Accolades

The following is a list of accolades Crudup has received or been nominated for throughout his film, television and theatre career:

Work	Year	Association / Category	Results	Ref
—	1995	Clarence Derwent Award for Best Supporting Male	Won
Arcadia		Theatre World Award for Best Actor	Won	^[22]
The Three Sisters	1997	Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play	Nominated	^[22]
The Hi-Lo Country	1998	National Board of Review Award for Breakthrough Performance – Male	Won
	1999	Western Heritage Award for Bronze Wrangler	Won
Jesus's Son	2000	Paris Film Festival for Best Actor	Won
Almost Famous	2001	Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actor – Drama / Romance	Nominated
		MTV Movie + TV Award for Best Line from a Movie ("I am a Golden God!")	Nominated
		Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Ensemble	Won
		Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture	Nominated	^[23]
Jesus's Son Almost Famous		Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor	Nominated
Jesus's Son		Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead	Nominated
Charlotte Gray	2002	Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama	Nominated
The Elephant Man		Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play	Nominated	^[22]
The Pillowman	2005	Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play	Nominated	^[22]
The Coast of Utopia	2007	Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play	Nominated	^[22]
The Good Shepherd		Silver Berlin Bear for Outstanding Artist Contribution	Won
The Coast of Utopia		Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play	Won	^[22]
Arcadia	2011	Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play	Nominated	^[22]
Spotlight	2015	Awards Circuit Community Award for Best Cast Ensemble	Won
	2016	Gold Derby Award for Ensemble Cast	Won
		Independent Spirit Award for Robert Altman Award	Won
		Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture	Won	^[24]
Harry Clarke	2018	Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance	Won	^[22]
The Morning Show	2020	Critics Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series	Won
		Dorian Award for Best Supporting TV Performance – Actor	Nominated
		Gold Derby Award for Drama Supporting Actor	Nominated	^[25]
		Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series	Won	^[26]
		Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series	Nominated	^[27]
	2022		Nominated
		Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series	Nominated	^[28]

References

1. "Birthdays". The Modesto Bee. Associated Press. July 8, 2022. p. 2A. Actor Billy Crudup is 54.
2. "Billy Crudup Biography". Yahoo! Movies. Retrieved May 21, 2008.
3. Evertz, Mary (October 26, 2001). "Crudup family keeps busy in New York Series: PEOPLE". St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved May 19, 2010.
4. "The Miami News – Google News Archive". July 17, 1966. Retrieved June 22, 2012.
5. Antoinio Ferme (February 16, 2023). "Billy Crudup on How His Father's 'Flawed Sense of Psychology' Inspired His 'Hello Tomorrow!' Character". variety.com. Variety. Retrieved February 22, 2023.
6. . Archived from the original on July 18, 2017. Retrieved July 18, 2017.
7. Jesse Green (October 10, 2004). "Billy Crudup: Almost Infamous". The New York Times. Retrieved May 21, 2008.
8. "Miami Herald: News Archive". Nl.newsbank.com. April 3, 1997. Retrieved June 22, 2012.
9. Who's who in the South and Southwest – Marquis Who's Who. 1959. Retrieved February 11, 2012 – via Google Books.
10. Kahn, Robert (June 11, 2007). "It's 'Utopia' at the Tony Awards". Newsday. Retrieved June 17, 2021.
11. Dziemianowicz, Joe (May 21, 2010). "New play tries to prove its 'Metal'". Daily News. Retrieved June 17, 2021.
12. "2011 Tony Nominations Announced! THE BOOK OF MORMON Leads With 14!". Broadway World. Retrieved February 11, 2012.
13. "カードローンの借り入れ条件の年収は重要?". twoplaysinrep.com.
14. Windman, Matt (October 15, 2018). "'Sakina's' Feels Reheated". Newsday. Retrieved June 17, 2021.
15. Hill, Logan (May 30, 2005). "Free Billy". New York.
16. Susman, Gary (January 14, 2004). "Mary-Louise Parker names son after Billy Crudup". Entertainment Weekly.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
17. Miller, Julie (October 5, 2015). "Claire Danes Opens Up About Billy Crudup/Mary-Louise Parker Scandal". Vanity Fair.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
18. Lee, Esther (November 10, 2015). "Mary-Louise Parker Addresses Billy Crudup Leaving Her for Claire Danes". Us Weekly.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
19. McKay, Rhys (February 17, 2020). "What Was Naomi Watts' Relationship Like With Liev Schreiber?". Who. Retrieved February 7, 2023.
20. Nolfi, Joey (April 1, 2019). "Billy Crudup is a dreamy, delusional 'doctor' in At Home With Amy Sedaris sneak peek". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved November 8, 2020.
21. 20th Century Fox (February 22, 2017). "Alien: Covenant – Prologue: Last Supper – 20th Century FOX". Archived from the original on October 30, 2021 – via YouTube.
22. "Billy Crudup – Broadway Cast & Staff | IBDB". IBDB. Retrieved September 29, 2020.
23. "The 7th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards". Screen Actors Guild Awards. Retrieved September 29, 2020.
24. "The 22nd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards". Screen Actors Guild Awards. Retrieved September 29, 2020.
25. Sheehan, Daniel Montgomery,Chris Beachum,Marcus James Dixon,Joyce Eng,Zach Laws,Paul; Montgomery, Daniel; Beachum, Chris; Dixon, Marcus James; Eng, Joyce; Laws, Zach; Sheehan, Paul (September 16, 2020). "2020 Gold Derby TV Awards winners: 'Schitt's' sweeps, 'Succession' succeeds, Reese Witherspoon rules and much more". GoldDerby. Retrieved September 29, 2020.
26. "Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series Nominees / Winners 2020". Television Academy. Retrieved September 29, 2020.
27. "The 26th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards". Screen Actors Guild Awards. Retrieved September 29, 2020.
28. Lewis, Hilary; Nordyke, Kimberly (July 12, 2022). "2022 Emmy Awards Nominations Revealed". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved July 12, 2022.

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Billy Crudup.

• Billy Crudup at the Internet Broadway Database  
• Billy Crudup at IMDb
• Billy Crudup at the Internet Off-Broadway Database