Liev Schreiber

Isaac Liev Schreiber is an American actor, director, and narrator. Known for his work across film, television, and theater, he has received a Tony Award as well as nominations for nine Primetime Emmy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards. He is widely recognized for playing the title character in the drama series Ray Donovan, as well as for his performances in numerous feature films and acclaimed stage productions.

Schreiber was born on October 4, 1967, in San Francisco, California, to Heather Milgram, a painter, and Tell Schreiber, an actor and carpenter. His mother is Jewish and his father was Protestant. Following his parents' separation, Schreiber was raised by his mother on the Lower East Side of New York City under bohemian influences. He attended Friends Seminary, a Quaker high school, where he played the bass clarinet. He went on to study acting at Hampshire College, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the Yale School of Drama—where he earned a master's degree in drama in 1992—and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Schreiber made his feature film debut in the 1994 dark comedy Mixed Nuts. He followed with roles in independent films such as Party Girl, The Daytrippers, and Big Night, as well as studio pictures including Ransom, A Walk on the Moon, and The Hurricane. His major breakthrough arrived when he played Cotton Weary in the first three films of the Scream horror franchise from 1996 to 2000. In 1999, he portrayed Orson Welles in the HBO film RKO 281, earning Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. His early 2000s film credits include Hamlet, Kate & Leopold, The Sum of All Fears, and the 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate. In 2005, Schreiber made his feature directorial debut with Everything Is Illuminated, a film adaptation he also wrote.

Alongside his film career, Schreiber established himself as a prominent classical and modern stage actor. He made his Broadway debut in the play In the Summer House. In 2005, he won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance as Richard Roma in David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross. He received subsequent Tony Award nominations for his roles in the revival of Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio in 2007, Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge in 2010, and John Patrick Shanley's Doubt in 2024. His stage work also encompasses Shakespearean productions such as Cymbeline, Hamlet, Henry V, and Macbeth, along with roles in plays like The Mercy Seat and Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

In subsequent years, Schreiber appeared in films such as The Omen, The Painted Veil, Defiance, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Salt, Pawn Sacrifice, and Spotlight, as well as Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs, The French Dispatch, and Asteroid City. On television, he starred as the lead in Ray Donovan from 2013 to 2020, reprising the role in the 2022 television film Ray Donovan: The Movie and earning multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for the performance. In 2023, he portrayed Otto Frank in the miniseries A Small Light. Schreiber is also an extensive voice narrator, lending his voice to documentaries for HBO, PBS, and the History Channel, as well as television commercials.