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. 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. Crudup has two brothers: Tommy, an executive producer, and Brooks, also a producer. 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 the Graduate Acting Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts in 1994. A year after graduating, he made his debut on Broadway in the Lincoln Center Theater production of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia.

Career

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. While he has appeared in many films, he regularly returns to the stage. 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 Russell Hammond, the lead guitar player of the fictional band Stillwater in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (2000). He has also been the voice of MasterCard "Priceless" commercials in the U.S. since 2005. 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.

He also appeared as Zartan in The Ballad of G.I. Joe video on funnyordie.com.

Crudup received a Tony Award nomination for his performance as the title character in The Elephant Man on Broadway, as well as 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 another Tony Award nomination and subsequent win.

He also starred in The Metal Children, an off-Broadway play written and directed by Adam Rapp in 2010. Crudup completed Watchmen with director Zack Snyder in Vancouver, British Columbia. He portrays the superhero Doctor Manhattan. He portrayed former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner in a story about 2008's financial crisis, Too Big to Fail (2011).

In 2011, Crudup was honored with a Tony Award nomination for Featured Actor in a Play for his role in the Broadway revival of Arcadia.

In February 2012, Crudup narrated a five-part television series on the first (of three) stages of the renovation of Madison Square Garden, which was televised on the Madison Square Garden Network.

He is on the Board of Directors for The Actors Center in New York City.

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 will be performed in repertory until March 2014.

Personal life

From 1996 to 2003, Crudup dated actress Mary-Louise Parker, with whom he has a son, William Atticus Parker (born January 7, 2004). He left Parker while she was seven months pregnant and started a relationship with his Princess Mononoke and Stage Beauty co-star Claire Danes. They broke up four years later.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1996	Sleepers	Tommy Marcano
1996	Everyone Says I Love You	Ken
1997	Inventing the Abbotts	Jacey Holt
1997	Grind	Eddie Dolan
1998	Monument Ave.	Teddy
1998	Without Limits	Steve Prefontaine
1998	The Hi-Lo Country	Pete Calder
1999	Princess Mononoke	Ashitaka (voice)	English dub
1999	Jesus' Son	FH
2000	Waking the Dead	Fielding Pierce
2000	Almost Famous	Russell Hammond
2001	World Traveler	Cal
2001	Charlotte Gray	Julien Levade
2003	Big Fish	Will Bloom
2003	Stage Beauty	Ned Kynaston
2005	Trust the Man	Tobey
2006	Mission: Impossible III	Musgrave
2006	The Good Shepherd	Arch Cummings
2007	Dedication	Henry Roth
2008	Pretty Bird	Curtis Prentiss
2009	Watchmen	Jon Osterman / Dr. Manhattan
2009	Public Enemies	J. Edgar Hoover
2009	The Ballad of G.I. Joe	Zartan	Short film
2010	Eat Pray Love	Steven
2011	Thin Ice	Randy Kinney
2011	Too Big to Fail	Timothy Geithner
2012	The Watch	Creepy Neighbor	Uncredited
2013	Blood Ties	Frank Pierzynski
2014	Rudderless	Sam
2014	The Longest Week	Dylan Tate
2014	Glass Chin	JJ Cook
2015	Red Light Winter	Davis
2015	The Stanford Prison Experiment	Dr. Philip Zimbardo
2015	Spotlight	Eric MacLeish
2016	Youth in Oregon	Brian Gleason	In post-production
2016	20th Century Women		Filming
2017	Alien: Covenant		Filming

Stage

Year	Play	Role	Production	Notes
2013	Waiting for Godot	Lucky	Berkeley Repertory Theatre / California Cort Theatre / Broadway	With Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart and Shuler Hensley.
2013	No Man's Land	Foster	Berkeley Repertory Theatre / California Cort Theatre / Broadway	With Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart and Shuler Hensley.
2011	Arcadia	Bernard Nightingale	Ethel Barrymore Theater / Broadway	Tony Award nominee - Best Featured Actor in a Play
2010	The Metal Children	Tobin Falmouth	Vineyard Theater / Off-Broadway
2009	The 24 Hour Plays (staged readings)	Billy
2006-2007	The Coast of Utopia: Part 2 - Shipwreck	Vissarion Belinsky	Lincoln Center Theatre / Broadway
2006-2007	The Coast of Utopia: Part 1 - Voyage	Vissarion Belinksy	Lincoln Center Theatre / Broadway	Tony Award winner - Best Featured Actor in a Play
2005	The Pillowman	Katurian	Edwin Booth Theatre / Broadway	Tony Award nominee - Best Actor in a Play
2004	The 24 Hour Plays (staged readings)	Bobby
2002	The Elephant Man	John Merrick	Royale Theatre / Broadway	Tony Award nominee - Best Actor in a Play
2002	The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui	Flake / Defense Counsel	National Actors Theatre / Off-Broadway
2001	Measure for Measure	Angelo	Public Theatre (Shakespeare in the Park)
1998	Oedipus	Oedipus	Blue Light Theatre Company / Off-Broadway
1997	The Three Sisters	Solyony	Roundabout Theatre / Broadway
1996	Bus Stop	Bo Decker	Circle in the Square Theatre / Broadway
1995	Arcadia	Septimus Hodge	Lincoln Center Theatre / Broadway
1994	America Dreaming	Robert	Vineyard Theater / Off-Broadway

Awards

Wins

• 2007 Tony Award, for The Coast of Utopia: Part 1 - Voyage
• 2001 OFCS Award, for Almost Famous
• 2000 Paris Film Festival, for Jesus' Son
• 1999 Western Heritage Award, for The Hi-Lo Country
• 1998 NBR Award, for The Hi-Lo Country

Nominations

• 2002 Satellite Award, for Charlotte Gray
• 2001 Screen Actors Guild Awards, for Almost Famous
• Blockbuster Entertainment Award, for Almost Famous
• Independent Spirit Award, for Jesus' Son
• MTV Movie Award, for Almost Famous

Charities

Billy Crudup supports the following charitable cause: Animals.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]