Early life

Kinney was born in Lincoln, Illinois, the son of Elizabeth L. (née Eimer), a telephone operator, and Kenneth C. Kinney, a tractor company supervisor.

He attended Illinois State University, in Normal, Illinois, where he became friends with Jeff Perry, who took him to see a performance of Grease featuring Gary Sinise, bringing the three Steppenwolf Theatre Company co-founders together for the first time.

Career

Theatre

Kinney has been involved in theatre since 1974, when he, Gary Sinise and Jeff Perry founded the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. In describing the company's radical usage of cinematic techniques such as accelerated time, substantial soundtracks and the rough equivalent of dissolves and bleeds, Kinney had said:

We’ve always been more influenced by cinematic techniques than stage techniques because stage techniques have been around long enough to become really boring and cliché. Our earliest influences were the films of Cassavetes, not any plays we’d seen. We always tend to score our pieces and we always tend to manipulate the audience to look where we want them to look and the way to do that is to get very tight on certain situations.

He has directed several plays (see below) and performed in several. In 1985 he performed in the Drama Desk Award winning play Balm in Gilead by Lanford Wilson. In 1996 Kinney played Tilden in the Sam Shepard play Buried Child directed by Gary Sinise in New York City. During a performance of Buried Child Kinney had a "terrible, horrible, screaming panic attack" and stayed offstage for several years, only returning in 2002 in a performance with Kurt Elling called Petty Delusions and Grand Obsessions. He directed Richard Greenberg's play Well Appointed Room in 2006 and Neil Labute's reasons to be pretty in 2009. In 2010 he directed another Lanford Wilson play, Fifth of July for Bay Street Theatre (July) and for the Williamstown Theatre Festival (August).

In October-November 2012 Kinney directs Checkers a new play by Douglas McGrath at the Vineyard Theatre, New York City. He's slated to direct Lyle Kessler's new play Collision in January 2013 at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater.

Film and television

Besides his theatrical work, Kinney has done much acting, mainly for television, starting in 1985 with an appearance in Miami Vice. In 1987, he starred as Pastor Tom Bird in the CBS miniseries Murder Ordained opposite JoBeth Williams. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of the idealistic unit manager Tim McManus on HBO's prison drama Oz.

In 1995, Kinney co-starred with Tommy Lee Jones in an adaptation of an Elmer Kelton western novel titled The Good Old Boys. Tommy Lee Jones directed this made for TV movie which also co-starred Sissy Spacek, Matthew Damon, Sam Shepard, Wilford Brimley and retired Texas Ranger H. Joaquin Jackson.

Kinney also directed two episodes of Oz, "Cruel and Unusual Punishments" in 1999 and "Wheel of Fortune" in 2002. Explaining the experience, he said, "it was great training for shooting on a limited budget, on a time crunch."

His film work includes a role in the 1988 film Miles from Home, which featured many cast members of Steppenwolf and was directed by Sinise. In 1995, he played mayoral candidate Todd Carter in Carl Franklin's film Devil in a Blue Dress. 1999 saw the release of the indie film, The Young Girl and the Monsoon, about Hank, a 39-year-old photo-journalist dealing with a demanding job and a growing daughter, and Kinney played the lead. In 2001, he played the estranged father of the protagonist, Sara Johnson (Julia Stiles), in the film Save the Last Dance.

In 2006 Kinney directed a short film (18 minutes) called Kubuku Rides (This Is It), which portrays the effects of drug addiction of a mother as seen by her young son. The film is based on the short story by Larry Brown. It is the first film produced by Steppenwolf Films. In 2008, he directed Diminished Capacity, a feature film with a big Steppenwolf presence, based on the Sherwood Kiraly novel of that name.

For television, in 2008, Kinney was Deputy Attorney General Zach Williams in Canterbury's Law, a short-lived Fox series. In 2009, he played Sergeant Harvey Brown in the ABC series, The Unusuals, and in the same year he had a recurring role as Special Agent Sam Bosco on the hit CBS series, The Mentalist.

2010 saw a pilot for a CBS drama called The Line, starring Dylan Walsh as ATF Agent Donovan with Kinney as a complex criminal, Alex Gunderson, that Donovan is hunting. The series was to be based on a novel by Robert Gregory Browne called "Kiss Her Goodbye". (Browne said that the show was tentatively called "ATF".) In 2011 Kinney had a recurring role in the North American adaptation of Being Human as Heggemann, an 1,100-year-old Dutch vampire. In April 2012 he starred in the CBS police procedural drama NYC 22 as Field Training Officer Daniel "Yoda" Dean. However after four episodes NYC 22 was axed. Kinney also guest starred as Salvatore Amato, a member of a Chicago crime family, in the new Fox drama The Mob Doctor premiering in September 2012.

Kinney was cast as series regular on ABC drama series Black Box opposite Kelly Reilly and Vanessa Redgrave, set to air on ABC in 2014.

Personal life

From 1984 to 1988, Kinney was married to Elizabeth Perkins. From 1993 to 2005, he was married to his Oz co-star Kathryn Erbe, with whom he has a daughter, Maeve (b. 1995), and a son, Carson (b. 2003).

Theater directing credits

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1976	The Lover	Director	Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago/Starred Laurie Metcalf and Jeff Perry
1981	Of Mice and Men	Director	Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago/Starred Gary Sinise
1982	And a Nightingale Sang	Director	Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago/Starred Joan Allen
1984	Fool for Love	Director	Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago/Starred William Petersen and Rondi Reed
1985	Streamers	Director	Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago/Starred Gary Sinise and Jeff Perry
1990	Reckless	Director	Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago/Starred Joan Allen
1992	My Thing Of Love	Director	Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago/Starred Laurie Metcalf
1994	A Clockwork Orange	Director	Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago
1997	A Streetcar Named Desire	Director	Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago/Starred Gary Sinise
1998	Eyes For Consuela	Director	Manhattan Theatre Club, New York City/Starred David Strathairn
2000	One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest	Director	Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago/Starred Gary Sinise
2003	The Violet Hour	Director	Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago
2004	Beautiful Child	Director	Vineyard Theatre, New York City/Starred Gary Sinise
2005	After Ashley	Director	Vineyard Theatre, New York/Starred Kieran Culkin and Anna Paquin
2006	The Well-Appointed Room	Director	Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago/Starred Josh Charles and Tracy Letts
	The Agony and the Agony	Director	Vineyard Theatre, New York City/Starred Nicky Silver
2009	reasons to be pretty (Neil Labute)	Director	MCC, New York City/Starred Piper Perabo and Thomas Sadoski
2010	Fifth of July (Lanford Wilson)	Director	Bay Street Theatre (July), then Williamstown Theatre Festival (August)

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1985	Seven Minutes in Heaven	Bill the Photographer	Film
1986	Miami Vice	Asst. State Atty. William Pepin	TV series
	No Mercy	Paul Deveneux	Film
1987	A Walk on the Moon	Lew Ellis	Film
	Murder Ordained	Pastor Tom Bird	TV film
	thirtysomething	Steve Woodman	TV series (7 episodes, 1987-1989)
1988	Miles from Home	Mark	Film
1990	Kojak: None So Blind	(unnamed)	TV film
	Law & Order	Clifford Chester	TV series
1991	Queens Logic	Jeremy	Film
	The Grapes of Wrath	Reverend Jim Casey	Teleplay
	Talent for the Game	Gil Lawrence	Film
1992	The Last of the Mohicans	John Cameron	Film
	Deadly Matrimony	Jim Mihkalik	TV mini-series
1993	Body Snatchers	Steve Malone	Film
	The Firm	Lamar Quinn	Film
	J.F.K.: Reckless Youth	Joseph P. Kennedy	TV film
1995	The Good Old Boys	Walter Calloway	TV film (dir: Tommy Lee Jones)
	Devil in a Blue Dress	Todd Carter	Film
1996	Fly Away Home	David Alden	Film
	Sleepers	Ralph Ferguson	Film
	Critical Choices	Lloyd	TV series
	Homicide: Life on the Street	Richard Laumer	TV series
1997	George Wallace	Billy Watson	TV film (dir: John Frankenheimer)
	Oz	Emerald City Unit Manager Tim McManus	TV series (six seasons)
	White Lies	Richard	Film
1998	Luminous Motion	Pedro	Film
	Don't Look Down	Dr. Paul Sadowski	TV film (dir: Wes Craven)
1999	Oxygen	Captain Tim Foster	Film
	That Championship Season	James Daly	TV film
	The Young Girl and the Monsoon	Hank (main character)	Film (with Ellen Muth)
2000	The House of Mirth	George Dorset	Film
2001	Save the Last Dance	Roy Johnson	Film
	Midwives	Rand Danforth	TV film
2002	The Laramie Project	Dennis Shepard	Film
2003	House Hunting	Hogue	Short film
2004	Focus Group	Bob Sadler	Short film
	CSI: NY	District Attorney Tom Mitford	TV series (2 episodes)
2005	The Game of Their Lives	The journalist, Dent McSkimming	Film
	Runaway	Dr. Maxim	Film
	Amber Frey: Witness for the Prosecution	Detective Neil O'Hara	TV film
2006	Kidnapped	James Sullivan	TV series
2007	Turn the River	Markus	Film
	Wainy Days	Marvin	Internet series (5 min episodes), 1 episode
	Queens Supreme	Andrew Grigg	TV series (1 episode)
2008	Canterbury's Law	Deputy Attorney General Zach Williams	TV series (main cast)
2009	The Unusuals	Sergeant Harvey Brown	TV series (main cast)
	The Mentalist	Special Agent Sam Bosco	TV series (recurring role)
2010	The Good Wife	Gerald Kozko (Risk assessor)	TV series (3 episodes)
2011	Being Human	Heggemann	TV series (recurring role)
2012	NYC 22	Daniel "Yoda" Dean	TV series (main cast)
	Promised Land	David Churchill	Film
	The Mob Doctor	Dante Amato	TV series (2 episodes)
2013	Elementary	Martin Ennis	TV series (one episode)
2014	Black Box	Dr. Owen Morely	Series regular
2015	Show Me a Hero	Peter Smith	TV miniseries
2015	Fargo	Chief Gibson	TV series (2 episodes)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]