Michael Emerson

Actor

• Born: September 7, 1954
• Birthplace: Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Contribution: Michael Emerson is an Emmy Award–winning actor best known for his roles in the television series The Practice, Lost, and Person of Interest.

Background

Michael Emerson was born on September 7, 1954, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to Ron and Carol Emerson. He was raised in the small farm town of Toledo, Iowa, along with his younger siblings, Patrick and Melissa.

Emerson got his first taste of acting in fifth grade, when he portrayed a Polynesian witch doctor in a Hawaiian-themed pageant. He went on to join the drama club at South Tama County High School, where he acted in a wide variety of plays and musicals. He was also a member of the school marching band.

After graduating from South Tama High in 1972, Emerson enrolled in Drake University in Des Moines, where he studied theater and art. He earned a bachelor’s degree in theater from Drake in 1976. Emerson next moved to New York City, where he lived for about ten years. During that time, he put off his dream of acting to become a freelance illustrator. He contributed regularly to the New York Times and other publications but was paid only modestly, which led him to take on various retail jobs for extra income.

In 1986 Emerson left New York for Jacksonville, Florida, where he rededicated himself to acting. He acted in Shakespearean plays staged by various Jacksonville community theaters for several years before graduating to regional productions that took him all over the South. Emerson returned to school in 1993, when he enrolled in a professional actor training program from the Alabama Shakespeare Festival (ASF), then held in cooperation with the University of Alabama. He received his master’s degree in acting from ASF in 1995.

Career

After completing his acting studies, Emerson returned to New York, where he obtained a supporting role in Moisés Kaufman’s Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, an off-Broadway play about the legal consequences of Oscar Wilde’s scandalous personal life. Although originally cast in a supporting part, Emerson took on the lead role of Wilde after the actor who was supposed to play him was fired. The play opened in March 1997 to critical acclaim, and Emerson received rave reviews for his performance, which garnered an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination.

Emerson’s next major stage role came in 1999, when he starred opposite Uma Thurman in an off-Broadway update of Molière’s seventeenth-century satire The Misanthrope. That year he also made his Broadway debut with a role in the Howard Davies revival of Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, which starred Kevin Spacey; he also costarred with Kate Burton in Irish playwright Brian Friel’s off-Broadway production Give Me Your Answer, Do! He appeared alongside Burton again in a Broadway revival of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler beginning in 2001.

Away from the stage, Emerson obtained both film and television roles. He appeared in such films as The Journey (1997), The Imposters (1998), Playing by Heart (1998), and For Love of the Game (1999) before winning the recurring role of serial killer William Hinks in the ABC legal drama series The Practice in 2000. Emerson received widespread critical notice for his chilling portrayal of the calculating Hinks, which won him the Emmy Award for outstanding guest actor in a drama series in 2001.

Emerson reunited with Kaufman for HBO’s The Laramie Project (2002), a film about the 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard that Kaufman adapted from his play of the same name. He also landed small roles in the mainstream Hollywood films Unfaithful (2002), Saw (2004), and The Legend of Zorro (2005) while making one-off appearances in such high-profile television series as The X-Files, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Without a Trace. Emerson returned to the stage in off-Broadway productions of Jean-Luc Lagarce’s Only the End of the World (2002), Molière’s Tartuffe (2003), and Itamar Moses’s Bach at Leipzig (2005).

In 2006 Emerson was cast in a recurring role on the ABC drama series Lost, a cult hit that followed the trials and tribulations of a group of plane crash survivors on an uncharted island. Originally hired to appear in only three episodes of the show’s second season, Emerson was cast as a new character calling himself Henry Gale. Show producers, however, were so impressed with Emerson’s performance that they turned his enigmatic character, whose true name is Benjamin Linus, into a regular character who is revealed to be the leader of the mysterious group known as the Others. Emerson’s role on the hugely popular show, which aired for six seasons, proved to be his breakthrough and earned him four consecutive Emmy Award nominations (2007–10) and a Golden Globe nomination in 2010. He took home the Emmy for outstanding supporting actor in a drama in 2009.

Following Lost, Emerson was cast in the CBS crime drama series Person of Interest. In the show, which premiered in September 2011, Emerson played a billionaire software engineer named Harold Finch who teams up with a former CIA operative, played by Jim Caviezel, to track down violent criminals with the aid of a mysterious machine. The series came to an end after a five-season run in 2016. In subsequent years, he continued to appear on television, taking on roles in series such as Arrow (2017–18) and the limited series The Name of the Rose (2019). Meanwhile, in 2017 he returned to the stage for an Off-Broadway production of Wakey, Wakey. In 2019, he began playing Leland Townsend in the new CBS series Evil, which premiered in September. By October, the show had been renewed by CBS for a second season.

Impact

Emerson has enjoyed an unprecedented level of success for an actor whose career did not take off until he was in his forties, earning praise from critics and fans alike. With his distinctive voice and appearance, Emerson emerged from the stage to become one of television’s most respected character players and the force behind one of the most talked-about characters in Lost, which itself became a pop culture phenomenon.

Personal Life

Emerson married his second wife, Carrie Preston, in 1998. Also an actor, Preston is best known for her role as Arlene Fowler in the HBO vampire series True Blood.

Principal Works

Television

The Practice, 2000–2001

The Laramie Project, 2002

Lost, 2006–10

Person of Interest, 2011–16

Evil, 2019–

Stage

Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, 1997–98

The Iceman Cometh, 1999

Wakey, Wakey, 2017

Film

The Journey, 1997

The Imposters, 1998

Playing by Heart, 1998

For Love of the Game, 1999

Unfaithful, 2002

Saw, 2004

The Legend of Zorro, 2005

Bibliography

Emerson, Michael. Interview by Jimmy Aquino. Stated Magazine. Stated Magazine, 2013. Web. 9 July 2013.

Hinckley, David. “Michael Emerson Enjoys Net-Ting Attention for Being a ‘Person of Interest.’” New York Daily News. NYDailyNews.com, 7 Feb. 2013. Web. 9 July 2013.

Patton, Charlie. “If He Can Make It There . . .” Jacksonville.com. Jacksonville.com, 16 May 1999. Web. 9 July 2013.

Rhodes, Joe. “The Creepy Guy on ‘Lost’ Reveals Clues to His Past.” New York Times. New York Times, 9 Nov. 2006. Web. 9 July 2013.

Rorke, Robert. “The Talented Mr. Finch.” New York Post. NYP Holdings, 2 Nov. 2012. Web. 9 July 2013.