Sam Waterston

Samuel Atkinson Waterston (born November 15, 1940) is an American actor, producer, and director. Waterston is known for his work in theater, television and film. He has received various award nominations including an Academy Award, Primetime Emmy Award, Tony Award, British Academy Film Award, Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Having starred in over 80 film and television productions during his 50-year career,[1] he is also known for numerous stage productions on Broadway and Off-Broadway. AllMovie historian Hal Erickson characterized Waterston as having “cultivated a loyal following with his quietly charismatic, unfailingly solid performances.”[2] Waterston received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010 and was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2012.

Waterston studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and the American Actors Workshop. He started his career in theater on the New York stage, appearing in multiple revivals of Shakespeare. In 1975, he starred as Hamlet at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park, and later performed the role at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater. In 1977, he starred in an off-Broadway production of Measure for Measure as Duke Vincentio alongside Meryl Streep and John Cazale at the Delacorte Theatre.[3] Throughout Waterston’s theater career, he continued to appear alongside notable actors including Raul Julia in Indians (1969), James Woods in The Trial of Catonsville Nine (1970), Liv Ullmann in A Doll’s House (1975), Jane Alexander in Hamlet (1975), and Glenn Close in Benefactors (1980).[4] In 1993, he portrayed Abraham Lincoln onstage in Abe Lincoln in Illinois where he received a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations for his performance.