James Woods

James Howard Woods (born April 18, 1947) is an American actor.

He is known for fast-talking intense roles on stage and screen.

He received numerous accolades including three Emmy Awards, and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Woods was born on April 18, 1947, in Vernal, Utah, and had a brother ten years younger.

His father, Gail Peyton Woods, was an army intelligence officer who died in 1960 after routine surgery.

His mother, Martha A. (Smith), ran a pre-school after her husband's death and later married Thomas E. Dixon.

Woods grew up in Warwick, Rhode Island, where he attended Pilgrim High School, from which he graduated in 1965.

He is of part Irish descent and was raised Catholic, briefly serving as an altar boy.

Woods was an undergraduate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He stated on Inside the Actors Studio that he originally intended to become an eye surgeon.

He pledged the Theta Delta Chi fraternity and was a member of the student theatre group Dramashop, acting in and directing a number of plays.

He started his career in minor roles on and off-Broadway before making his Broadway debut in The Penny Wars (1969), followed by Borstal Boy (1970), The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (1971), and Moonchildren (1972).

He dropped out of MIT in 1969, one semester before graduating, to pursue an acting career.

Woods has said that he owes his acting career to Tim Affleck, father of actors Ben and Casey Affleck, who was a stage manager at the Theatre Company of Boston, which Woods attended as a student.

Woods appeared in 36 plays before making his Broadway debut in 1970 at the Lyceum Theatre, in the first American production of Frank McMahon’s adaptation of Brendan Behan's Borstal Boy.

He got the part by pretending he was British.

He returned to Broadway the following year to portray David Darst in Daniel Berrigan's The Trial of the Catonsville Nine also at the Lyceum Theatre.

By the early 1970s, he was getting small movie roles including his feature film debut in Elia Kazan's The Visitors and a spot as Barbra Streisand's boyfriend in The Way We Were.

In 1971, he played Bob Rettie in the American premiere of Michael Weller's Moonchildren at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. The following year the production moved to Broadway at the Royale Theatre where Woods starred alongside Edward Herrmann, and Christopher Guest.

Woods' early film roles include in The Visitors (1972), The Way We Were (1973) and Night Moves (1975).

In 1972, Woods won a Theatre World Award for his performance.

He returned to Broadway in 1973 to portray Steven Cooper in the original production of Jean Kerr's Finishing Touches at the Plymouth Theatre.

Woods has garnered a reputation as a prominent Hollywood character actor, having appeared in over 130 films and television series.

He starred in the NBC miniseries Holocaust (1978) opposite Meryl Streep.

In 1978, Woods played the husband of Meryl Streep in the critically acclaimed four episode miniseries Holocaust.

The series focuses on the story of a Jewish family's struggle to survive Nazi Germany's campaign of genocide against the Jewish people.

The series also starred Michael Moriarty and Rosemary Harris.

Holocaust won the Outstanding Limited Series as well as seven other Primetime Emmy Awards.

He rose to prominence portraying Gregory Powell in The Onion Field (1979).

In 1979, Woods starred in The Onion Field as murderer Gregory Powell.

He received good reviews for his performance, and was nominated for Best Actor awards from the Golden Globes, the National Society of Film Critics, and the New York Film Critics Circle Association.

Notable film roles include in Videodrome (1983), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Nixon (1995), Chaplin (1992), Casino (1995), Contact (1997), Vampires (1998), Any Given Sunday (1999), and The Virgin Suicides (1999).

He served as an executive producer on the Christopher Nolan biographical drama film Oppenheimer (2023).

Woods played Maximillian "Max" Bercovicz, a Jewish gangster, in Sergio Leone's epic Once Upon a Time in America (1984) alongside Robert De Niro and Tuesday Weld.

Woods considers his role in the film as one of his favorites.

He earned two Academy Awards nominations: one for Best Actor for Salvador (1986) and for Best Supporting Actor for Ghosts of Mississippi (1996).

He is the recipient of two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his roles as D.J. in the CBS movie Promise (1987) and Bill W. in the ABC film My Name Is Bill W. (1989).

He has also portrayed Roy Cohn in Citizen Cohn (1992) and Dick Fuld in Too Big to Fail (2011).

He has provided voice roles for films such as Hercules (1997), Recess: School's Out (2001), Stuart Little 2 (2002), and Surf's Up (2007), as well as voicing himself several times on Family Guy (2005-present).

He starred in the CBS legal series Shark (2006-2008), and had a recurring role in the Showtime crime series Ray Donovan (2013).