Early life and career

A native of the South Bronx, Hughes studied jazz composition at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. At the age of nineteen he became one of the youngest members ever to be given lifetime membership in The Actor's Studio. He also studied with acting teacher Sonia Moore. After numerous stage productions Off-Broadway, Hughes made his feature film debut in Robert Celestino's True Convictions (1991).

Since then he has starred in such films as: Bad Boys (1995) opposite Will Smith, Lonely in America (1991), The Funeral (1996) opposite Benicio del Toro and Christopher Walken, Layin' Low (1996), Mr. Vincent (1997) (for which he won mass critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival for his role as John Vincent), Urban Jungle (1999), Robbers (2000), Anacardium (2001) (for which he won BEST ACTOR at the New York Independent Film Festival), and Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002). He also appeared in Robert Celestino's Yonkers Joe opposite Chazz Palminteri and Christine Lahti and in Jon Avnet's Righteous Kill opposite Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.

Television

Hughes is a veteran of television. He had recurring roles in the series:

• HBO's The Sopranos as Walden Belfiore, a soldier in the Soprano crime family.
• HBO's mini-series, Band of Brothers (2001) as ""Wild Bill" Guarnere
• The Dick Wolf series Players (1997)
• NBC's series LAX

He teamed up with Band of Brothers writer Graham Yost on two more occasions.

• Boomtown
• Justified

Other appearances include: Cover Me, Law & Order, Homicide: Life on the Street, Feds, Without a Trace, Monk, Boomtown, Kings of South Beach, Curb Your Enthusiasm, JAG, The Path to 9/11, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, NCIS, and Criminal Minds.

Video game work

• He provides voiceovers in the video game Call of Duty 2: Big Red One.

Latest works

In 2009, Hughes joined the cast of the series 24 as Secretary of Homeland Security, Tim Woods. He returned to that role in 2010.

Also in 2009 Hughes wrote, produced and starred in the film LEAVE along with Rick Gomez. The film was released in 2011.

In 2013 another film written and produced by Hughes, DARK TOURIST, was released, starring Michael Cudlitz and Melanie Griffith.

In June of 2013 Hughes signed a two picture deal with Warner Brothers and will adapt the novel SHOVEL READY which will star Denzel Washington and will also write the screenplay TIER 1 for the studio with Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald producing.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]