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American actor (born 1954) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Terry Kinney (born January 29, 1954) is an American actor and theater director, and a founding member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, with Gary Sinise and Jeff Perry. Kinney is best known for his role as Tim McManus on HBO's prison drama Oz.
Terry Kinney | |
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![]() Kinney in 2016 | |
Born | Lincoln, Illinois, U.S. | January 29, 1954
Alma mater | Illinois State University |
Occupation(s) | Actor, theatre director |
Years active | 1974–present |
Spouses | |
Children | 2 |
Kinney was born in Lincoln, Illinois, the son of Elizabeth L. (née Eimer), a telephone operator, and Kenneth C. Kinney, a tractor company supervisor.[1]
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.[2]
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.[3] 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 directed Checkers a new play by Douglas McGrath at the Vineyard Theatre, New York City.[4] He directed Lyle Kessler's new play Collision in January 2013 at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater.[5]
Besides his theatrical work, Kinney has done much acting, mainly for television, starting in 1986 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, Matt 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."[6]
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. In 1996, Kinney played a comedic role as Uncle David in the coming-of-age drama, Fly Away Home. In 1999, Kinney played the lead in 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. 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".[7]) 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.[8]
Kinney was cast as a series regular on ABC drama series Black Box opposite Kelly Reilly and Vanessa Redgrave, set to air on ABC in 2014.[9]
From 2016 to 2023, Kinney has played Hall, a recurring character in the TV series Billions. In 2019, Terry was cast in the Shonda Rhimes mini-series Inventing Anna alongside Julia Garner, Laverne Cox, and Anna Chlumsky.[10] The series, which depicts Instagram-famous scam artist Anna Sorokin, premiered on Netflix in 2022.
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 two children.
Kinney lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1978 | A Wedding | Caterer | Uncredited |
1985 | Seven Minutes in Heaven | Bill the Photographer | |
1986 | No Mercy | Paul Deveneux | |
1987 | A Walk on the Moon | Lew Ellis | |
1988 | Miles from Home | Mark | |
1991 | Queens Logic | Jeremy | |
Talent for the Game | Gil Lawrence | ||
1992 | The Last of the Mohicans | John Cameron | |
1993 | Body Snatchers | Steve Malone | |
The Firm | Lamar Quinn | ||
1995 | Devil in a Blue Dress | Todd Carter | |
1996 | Sleepers | Ralph Ferguson | |
Fly Away Home | David Alden | ||
1997 | White Lies | Richard | |
1998 | Luminous Motion | Pedro | |
1999 | The Young Girl and the Monsoon | Hank | With Ellen Muth |
Oxygen | Captain Tim Foster | ||
2000 | The House of Mirth | George Dorset | |
2001 | Save the Last Dance | Roy Johnson | |
2003 | House Hunting | Hogue | Short film |
2004 | Focus Group | Bob Sadler | Short film |
2005 | The Game of Their Lives | Dent McSkimming | |
Runaway | Dr. Maxim | ||
2007 | Turn the River | Markus | |
2012 | Promised Land | David Churchill | |
2015 | I Smile Back | Dr. Page | |
2017 | Abundant Acreage Available | Jesse Ledbetter | |
November Criminals | Principal Karlstadt | ||
2018 | Mile 22 | Johnny Porter | |
2019 | Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile | Mike Fisher | |
2021 | The Little Things | Captain Farris | |
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1986 | Miami Vice | Asst. State Atty. William Pepin | Episode: "The Good Collar" |
1987–1989 | thirtysomething | Steve Woodman | 7 episodes |
1987 | Murder Ordained | Pastor Tom Bird | TV film |
1990 | Kojak: None So Blind | Paul Hogarth | TV film |
1991 | The Grapes of Wrath | Reverend Jim Casey | Teleplay |
1992 | Deadly Matrimony | Jim Mihkalik | Miniseries |
1993 | JFK: Reckless Youth | Joseph P. Kennedy | TV film |
1995 | The Good Old Boys | Walter Calloway | TV film (dir: Tommy Lee Jones) |
1996 | Homicide: Life on the Street | Richard Laumer | Episode: "Map of the Heart" |
Critical Choices | Lloyd | TV film | |
1997 | George Wallace | Billy Watson | TV film (dir: John Frankenheimer) |
1997–2003 | Oz | Emerald City Unit Manager Tim McManus | Main role |
1998 | Don't Look Down | Dr. Paul Sadowski | TV film (dir: Wes Craven) |
1999 | That Championship Season | James Daly | TV film |
2001 | Midwives | Rand Danforth | TV film |
2002 | The Laramie Project | Dennis Shepard | TV film |
2003 | Queens Supreme | Andrew Grigg | Episode: "Words That Wound" |
2004 | CSI: NY | District Attorney Tom Mitford | 2 episodes |
2005 | Amber Frey: Witness for the Prosecution | Detective Neil O'Hara | TV film |
2006 | Kidnapped | James "Sully" Sullivan | Episode: "Sorry, Wrong Number" |
2008 | Law & Order | Clifford Chester | Episode: "Driven" |
Wainy Days | Marvin | Episode: "Carol" | |
Canterbury's Law | Deputy Attorney General Zach Williams | Main cast | |
2009 | The Unusuals | Sergeant Harvey Brown | Main cast |
The Mentalist | Special Agent Sam Bosco | Recurring role | |
2010 | The Good Wife | Gerald Kozko | 3 episodes |
2011–2012 | Being Human | Heggemann | Recurring role |
2012 | NYC 22 | Daniel "Yoda" Dean | Main cast |
The Mob Doctor | Dante Amato | 2 episodes | |
2013 | Elementary | Howard Ennis | Episode: "The Deductionist" |
2014 | Black Box | Dr. Owen Morely | Series regular |
2015 | Show Me a Hero | Peter Smith | Miniseries |
Fargo | Chief Gibson | 2 episodes | |
2016–2017 | Good Behavior | Christian | Series regular |
2016–2022 | Billions | Hall | Recurring role |
2018 | Electric Dreams | Mr. Dick | Episode: "The Father Thing" |
2022 | Inventing Anna | Barry | Miniseries (8 episodes) |
The Watcher | Jasper Winslow | 4 episodes | |
2023 | Justified: City Primeval | Toma Costia | 3 episodes |
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