Early life

Adelstein was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1969, to a Reform Jewish family. Prior to his professional acting career, Adelstein attended the progressive Francis W. Parker School, then Bowdoin College where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude with a degree in English. He began his career in theatre, working with New Crime Productions, a company founded by John Cusack, and later with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Career

Making his film debut in 1990 in The Grifters, Adelstein went on to appear in several television series which include Cupid, ER, Without a Trace and Scrubs and to have a number of significant supporting roles in films such as Bedazzled (2000), Intolerable Cruelty (2003), Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), and Be Cool (2005).

In 2005, he received his most significant role to date as a member of the regular cast of the suspenseful television series Prison Break. Interestingly, though he played the role of mysterious government operative Paul Kellerman, he had originally auditioned for the role of protagonist Lincoln Burrows. When he left the show in 2007, he joined the regular cast of medical drama Private Practice where he stayed for the show's entire six season run. After the series finale in 2013, he has more recently had a recurring role on Scandal, which he has continued into 2014.

Currently his main role is as Jake Novak, the husband of Abby McCarthy (Lisa Edelstein) in Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce, which premiered in late 2014 as the first scripted original series for Bravo. In April 2016, he was cast as Raymond Blackstone in the upcoming Hulu series Chance starring Hugh Laurie.

Personal life

Paul moved to Los Angeles in 2003 at the age of 34. "I've fallen in love with the city. I found it difficult at first, but like I said I was doing it in pretty small doses. By the time I had my own place I was pretty comfortable here, and now I love it. There's really no place in the world like Los Angeles, love it or hate it." Despite hailing from Chicago, Adelstein has been a fan and supporter since childhood of the NFL's Cleveland Browns.

In November 2006, Adelstein married actress Liza Weil, who played Paris Geller on Gilmore Girls. They welcomed a daughter in April 2010. In March 2016, Weil filed for divorce from Adelstein, requesting joint custody of their daughter, and using mediation to hash out spousal support.

Adelstein is lead singer and guitarist of a band called Doris. The band was started in the late 1990s and Adelstein has recorded several albums with them, singing and songwriting for the group. Adelstein is also a pianist and guitarist. His musical background was the cover story in the May/June 2012 issue of Making Music Magazine.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1990	The Grifters	Sailor - Young Paul
1997	Peoria Babylon	Brad Kessler
2000	Bedazzled	Bob/Roberto/Beach Jock/Sportscaster
2003	Intolerable Cruelty	Wrigley
2004	Lawrence Melm
	Bandwagon	Joe Rice
	Collateral	Fed #3
2005	Memoirs of a Geisha	Lieutenant Hutchins
	Be Cool	Hy Gordon
2009	Land of the Lost	Astronaut (voice)
	The Missing Person	Drexler Hewitt
	Little Fish, Strange Pond aka. Frenemy	Philly	direct-to-DVD
2010	Happy Sushi		short
2014	Return to Zero	Aaron	Main Role
2016	The Phenom	Scott Borwitz
	Mothers and Daughters	Peter

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1998-99	Cupid	Mike	Television episodes (1x01, 1x02, 1x06, 1x07, 1x09, 1x11, 1x14)
1999	Turks	Officer Cliff Fowler	Television series
	ER	Hank Loman	1 episode (6x09: "How the Finch Stole Christmas')
2002	R.U.S./H.	Tom Epstein	Television movie
	ER		1 episode (8x17: "Bygones")
	Breaking News	Julian Kerbis	Television series
2002-03	Hack	Sergeant Aldo Rossi	5 episodes (1x13, 1x14, 1x20, 2x04, 2x10)
2003	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Steven Kellerman	1 episode (4x14: "Mercy")
	Partners and Crime		Television movie
	The Lyon's Den	Snyder	1 episode (1x09)
	Without a Trace	Dave	1 episode (2x05: "Copy Cat")
2004	Las Vegas	Alex Brooks	Television episode (2x11: "My Beautiful Launderette")
2005	Medium	Craig	1 episode (1x14: "In the Rough")
	Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law	Murro	1 episode (3x02)
2005-09, 2016	Prison Break	Paul Kellerman	Television series Series regular 46 episodes
2006	Nobody's Watching	Jeff Tucker	Television series
	Scrubs	Dr. Stone	1 episode (5x21: "My Fallen Idol")
2007	Grey's Anatomy	Cooper Freedman	3 episodes (3x22, 3x23)
2007-13	Private Practice		Television series Series regular 111 episodes
2010	Glenn Martin DDS	Earl (voice)	1 episode ("Courtney's Pony")
2013-present	Scandal	Leo Bergen	Television series Recurring 16 episodes
2014-present	Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce	Jake Novak	Television series Series regular, producer 26 episodes
2015	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Dr. Neil Alexander	1 episode ("Decaying Morality)
2016	Chance	Raymond Blackstone	Upcoming series

[ Source: Wikipedia ]