Adventures of Sebastian Cole

Background:

American actor, director and screen writer Clark Gregg became the center of interest for his arresting, scene-stealing turn as a transsexual in the independent feature The Adventures of Sebastian Cole (1998) for director-writer Tod Williams. For his effort, he received an Independent Spirit nomination. An ongoing collaborator to director-writer David Mamet, Gregg, along with his costars, enjoyed victory in Mamet’s State and Main (2000), where he picked up a Florida Film Critics Circle Award, a National Board of Review Award and an Online Film Critics Society Award. Other projects with Mamet include movies Things Change (1988), The Spanish Prisoner (1997), Spartan (2004), and the Off-Broadway production of “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” (2000). In 2000, Gregg also emerged as a successful screenwriter with his work in the hit thriller What Lies Beneath.

The founding member and former artistic director of New York’s Atlantic Theater Company is also known for playing small roles in such big films as Clear and Present Danger (1994), The Usual Suspects (1995), Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999) and We Were Soldiers (2002). His more recent and forthcoming credits include The Human Stain (2003), In Good Company (2004), When a Stranger Calls (2006), Hoot (2006), Black Christmas (2006) and The Air I Breathe (2006). On the small screen, Gregg has had guest roles in several series, including “The West Wing” (2001-2003), and has starred in many television films, like HBO’s Tyson and Above Suspicion (both 1995). He is currently seen as Richard Campbell in the sitcom “The New Adventures of Old Christine” (2006-?), with Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Off camera, Gregg has spent his life outside the limelight with his actress-wife Jennifer Grey, whom he married in 2001. He is the father of a five-year-old girl, Stella.


Father of a Young Girl

Childhood and Family:

Clark Gregg was born on April 2, 1962 in Boston, Massachusetts. He enrolled at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, and at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, graduating with a BFA degree in Drama in 1986.

On July 21, 2001, Clark married his actress-girlfriend, Jennifer Grey (born on March 26, 1960, in New York, New York), whom he had dated since late summer 2000. The couple had their first child a daughter named Stella on December 3, 2001.


State and Main

Career:

Clark Gregg started her affiliation with his teachers William H. Macy and David Mamet as a student at New York University. Following in the footsteps of his mentors, he formed the Atlantic Theater Company in NYC in 1984, where he once also served as artistic director. After completing his studies, Gregg was seen in his first Off-Broadway play, “Fun,” in 1987, and worked professionally in the following year with roles in his feature debut in Mamet’s Things Change, in the HBO special Lip Service, which was helmed by Macy, as well as in Howard Korder’s “A Boy’s Life,” an Off-Broadway production which was also directed by Macy. At the end of the decade, he had her next film exposure with a supporting part in the history/drama Fat Man and Little Boy, starring Paul Newman and directed by Roland Joffe.

After making his Broadway debut in Aaron Sorkin’s “A Few Good Men” (1990), directing NYC premiere of Kevin Heelan’s “Distant Fires” (1991) at Atlantic Theater Company, a gig he later reprised for the 1993 Los Angeles premiere, as well as having his first episodic role in a 1991 segment of the NBC “Law & Order,” Gregg scored a feature lead as the plumber erroneous for a podiatrist in the Bashar Shbib-directed Lana in Love (1992). He rejoined with Shbib for the Las Vegas-set Ride Me in 1994, and appeared in Charles Shyer’s I Love Trouble and the Harrison Ford starring vehicle Clear and Present Danger, that same year.

Next, Gregg was seen as Dr. Walters in Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects (1995), as fight instructor Kevin Rooney in the HBO television film Tyson (1995) and as Randy, opposite Joe Mantegna and Christopher Reeve, in the made-for-TV film Above Suspicion (1995), before returning to the director’s chair to stage Atlantic Theater Company revival of Mamet’s “Edmond” in 1996. Still on stage, the actor enjoyed success as an insulting club owner named Baby in Atlantic Theater presentation of Jez Butterworth’s 1995 Olivier Award-winning comedy, “Mojo” (1997). Re-teaming with Mamet, Gregg undertook a small role as an FBI Sniper in his drama-thriller The Spanish Prisoner (1997), starring Campbell Scott and Steve Martin. In writer-director Tod Williams’ The Adventures of Sebastian Cole (1998), the multi-talented performer received positive reviews for his role as the maternal, pre-operative transsexual father, Hank-Henrietta. The role also brought him a 2000 Independent nomination for Best Supporting Male. He closed the decade with a small part in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999), which also starred William H. Macy.

Gregg’s enduring partnership with Mamet continued in 2000 with the Off-Broadway revival of “Sexual Perversity in Chicago,” and with the comedy/drama film State and Main, in which he was cast as a local politician in a small New England town. The latter won Gregg a Florida Film Critics Circle, a National Board of Review and an Online Film Critics Society for Best Acting by an Ensemble, sharing with costars Alec Baldwin, Charles Durning, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Julia Stiles, Sarah Jessica Parker, among others. Still in 2000, Gregg was noted for his screenwriting credit in the popular thriller What Lies Beneath, starring Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer and helmed by Robert Zemeckis.

Following guest spots in episodes of “Sex and the City” and “The Practice” (both 2000), and an unappreciated role as a Cybertronics Supernerd in Steven Spielberg’s damned A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Gregg portrayed the husband of Michelle (Catherine Keener), a selfish and besieged artist coping with a miserable marriage, in the critically acclaimed Lovely & Amazing (2001), appeared as Captain Tom Metsker in the popular Vietnam drama We Were Soldiers (2002) as well as was featured as Detective Paul Outerbridge in the Robin Williams vehicle One Hour Photo (2002), a capable, low-key independent thriller that took critics and audiences by surprise. Also in 2002, he was seen in two television films: My Sister’s Keeper, and Live from Baghdad, the award-winning TV movie starring Helena Bonham Carter and Michael Keaton.

2003-2004 saw roles in such films as the improbable drama The Human Stain (2003, with Anthony Hopkins), the solid, but overlooked political thriller Spartan (2004, rejoined with director/writer Mamet) and the lauded comedy-drama In Good Company (2004, starred Dennis Quaid, Topher Grace and Scarlett Johansson). He also made guest appearance as Cameron in one episode of “Will & Grace” (2003), as William Faulks in two episodes of FX’s “The Shield” (2004), and had a recurring role in NBC’s “The West Wing,” where he played FBI Special Agent Mike Casper from 2001-2003.

Recently, the 44-year-old player found himself acting with Camilla Belle in Simon West’s remake When a Stranger Calls (2006), with Logan Lerman and Luke Wilson in the comedy-family Hoot (2006) and with Adam Brody in director-writer Jon Kasdan’s In the Land of Women (2006). On the small screen, he is currently starring as Richard Campbell in the CBS sitcom “The New Adventures of Old Christine,” opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Hamish Linklater. The show debuted on March 13, 2006.

Gregg will play Tom Pullman in the upcoming TV film Road to Christmas (2006), starring Jennifer Grey as high-powered fashion photographer Claire Jameson. Besides, he still has two film projects in post productions, Glen Morgan’s horror/thriller Black Christmas and the crime The Air I Breathe, both scheduled for 2006 release. The latter film stars Kevin Bacon, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Brendan Fraser and Forest Whitaker.


Awards:

- Florida Film Critics Circle: Best Ensemble Cast, State and Main, 2001
- Online Film Critics Society: Best Ensemble Cast Performance, State and Main, 2001
- National Board of Review: Best Acting by an Ensemble, State and Main, 2000