Acting career

Olds began acting at age 15 at The Public Theater in New York, in a performance of Measure for Measure in 1987. Soon after, he was cast in 14 Going on 30 (ABC, 1988), a two-part Disney Sunday Movie with an age-shifting plot, similar to Big. In 1992, Olds was hired by Dick Wolf for an episode of Law & Order, in which Olds played an ambitious student who murders his father.

In 1993, Olds made his Broadway debut with the drama Any Given Day, a prequel to the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Subject Was Roses. Olds took time off from Yale University to perform in the show. Soon after, Olds was cast in the Penny Marshall-produced film Calendar Girl, a nostalgic take on the teen road trip. Back at Yale, Olds starred in and directed the Shakespearean drama Richard II, to positive notices. More work followed, with a supporting role in John Frankenheimer's Civil War prison camp miniseries Andersonville (TNT), and work on Party of Five (Fox), Sisters (NBC), and a well-reviewed appearance in Charmed.

Soon after, Olds went back to Broadway, co-starring in Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge at the Roundabout Theater, which won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. Olds was well received as Rodolpho, an illegal immigrant who stays with Eddie Carbone (Anthony LaPaglia, Tony-winner for this performance) and falls in love with Catherine (Brittany Murphy, in her Broadway debut).

Soon after, Olds took a supporting role opposite Billy Crudup in the track and field-themed Steve Prefontaine biopic Without Limits. In 2000, Law & Order producer Dick Wolf, who'd worked with Olds before, offered him the lead role in The WB's political drama, D.C. (TV series). The actor was hired to play Mason Scott, a privileged idealist with a pragmatic roommate (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) and a flaky twin sister (Jacinda Barrett).

Olds then went on to playing a sexually deluded actor in the independent drama Urbania (2000). Other credits include E-Ring, Commander in Chief, Six Feet Under, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Cold Case, Numb3rs, Medium, Franklin & Bash and Private Practice. Olds also played the role of "Ed" in the Tommy Lee Jones film The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (winner of two awards at the Cannes Film Festival, 2005), though his scenes were deleted.

In 2007, Olds filmed two television pilots, Conspiracy (Lifetime), and Winters (NBC). The latter was executive produced by David Shore, creator of House. In the same year, Olds starred in the LA stage production of the two-person play Tryst, at the Black Dahlia Theater, which got him rave reviews, 6 nominations, and 2 wins for Best Actor, from LA Weekly Theater Awards and the LADCC.

Recent work includes the voiceover work for psychopath video game character Paul Carson in Capcom's video game Dead Rising, NBC's The Event, and NBC's Heroes where he plays a shape-shifted version of Sylar. Olds can be seen in the CBS dramas Criminal Minds and The Mentalist, and in the Bruce Willis action film Surrogates, in which he plays a cyborg cop.

Olds has a recurring part on HBO's Boardwalk Empire, and CBS's NCIS: New Orleans.

Writing career

Olds writes screenplays and freelance journalism for Condé Nast Publications and salon.com. He has written about flying after 9/11 and plastic surgery in Los Angeles.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]