Mandy Patinkin

After some television-commercial and radio appearances (including on CBS Radio Mystery Theater in 1974), Patinkin started his career on the New York stage in 1975, starring in Trelawny of the 'Wells' as Arthur Gower. Patinkin starred alongside Meryl Streep, who played Imogen Parrott, and John Lithgow, who played Ferdinand Gadd. From 1975 through 1976, Patinkin played the Player King and Fortinbras, Prince of Norway in a Broadway revival of Hamlet, with Sam Waterston in the leading role. Patinkin had his first success in musical theater[1] when he played Che in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita, which starred Patti LuPone, on Broadway in 1979.[16]

Patinkin went on to win the 1980 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical for his performance in Evita.[1][2][16] He then moved to film, playing parts in movies such as Yentl[2] and Ragtime. He returned to Broadway in 1984 to star in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Sunday in the Park with George,[17] in which he played the pointillist artist Georges Seurat and his fictional great-grandson George,[12] earning him another Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical.[2][17]

In 1987, Patinkin played Inigo Montoya in Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride, playing the role of the best swordsman in the country, looking to avenge his father's death.[12] Over the next decade, he continued to appear in movies, including Dick Tracy and Alien Nation.

On Broadway, Patinkin appeared in the musical The Secret Garden in 1991 and was nominated for the 1991 Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Actor in a Musical.[18] He also released two solo albums, titled Mandy Patinkin (1989)[19] and Dress Casual (1990).[20]

In 1994, Patinkin took the role of Dr. Jeffrey Geiger on CBS's Chicago Hope[2] for which he won an Emmy Award. However, despite the award and the ratings success of the show, Patinkin left the show during the second season because he was unhappy spending so much time away from his wife and children.[21] He returned to the show in 1999 at the beginning of the sixth season, but it was canceled in 2000. Since Chicago Hope, Patinkin has appeared in a number of films. However, he has mostly performed as a singer, releasing three more albums. In 1995, he guest-starred in The Simpsons in the episode "Lisa's Wedding" as Hugh Parkfield, Lisa's future English groom.

Mamaloshen, Patinkin's musical production of songs sung entirely in Yiddish, premiered in 1998. He has performed the show on Broadway and in venues around the United States. The recorded version won a Deutscher Schallplattenpreis award in Germany.[22]

In 1999, Patinkin co-starred in the second Sesame Street film, The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, as Huxley, an abusive, childish, sadistic, and greedy man with abnormally large eyebrows, who steals whatever he can grab and then claims it as his own.[23][24]

Patinkin returned to Broadway in 2000 in the New York Shakespeare Festival production of Michael John LaChiusa's The Wild Party, earning another Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical.[25] From 2003 to 2004, he appeared in the Showtime comedy drama Dead Like Me as Rube Sofer. In 2004, he played a six-week engagement of his one-man concert at the Off-Broadway complex Dodger Stages.

In September 2005, he debuted in the role of Jason Gideon, an experienced profiler just coming back to work after a series of nervous breakdowns, in the CBS crime-drama television series Criminal Minds.[1] Patinkin was absent from a table read for Criminal Minds and did not return for a third season. The departure from the show was not due to contractual or salary matters, but over creative differences. He left apologetic letters for his fellow cast members explaining his reasons and wishing them luck. Many weeks before his departure, in a videotaped interview carried in the online magazine Monaco Revue, Patinkin told journalists at the Festival de Télévision de Monte-Carlo that he loathed violence on television and was uncomfortable with certain scenes in Criminal Minds. He later called his choice to do Criminal Minds his "biggest public mistake" and stated that he "thought it was something very different. I never thought they were going to kill and rape all these women every night, every day, week after week, year after year. It was very destructive to my soul and my personality. After that, I didn't think I would get to work in television again."[26]

Patinkin spoke of having planned to tour the world with a musical and wanting to inject more comedy into the entertainment business.[27] In later episodes of Criminal Minds, during the 2007–08 season, Jason Gideon was written out of the series and replaced by Special Agent David Rossi (played by Joe Mantegna). Gideon was later officially killed off, ending all chances of a guest appearance by Patinkin on the show.

On October 14, 2009, it was announced that Patinkin would be a guest star on an episode of Three Rivers, which aired on November 15, 2009. He played a patient with Lou Gehrig's disease injured in a car accident who asks the doctors at Three Rivers Hospital to take him off life support so his organs can be donated. He filmed an appearance on The Whole Truth that had been scheduled to air December 15, 2010, but ABC pulled the series from its schedule two weeks prior.[28]

He starred in the new musical Paradise Found, co-directed by Harold Prince and Susan Stroman, at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London. The musical played a limited engagement from May 2010 through June 26, 2010.[29]

Patinkin and Patti LuPone performed their concert An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin on Broadway for a limited 63-performance run starting November 21, 2011, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, and ending on January 13, 2012. The concert marked the first time the pair had performed together on Broadway since appearing in Evita.[30][31]

He costarred with Claire Danes on the Showtime series Homeland, which aired from 2011 until 2020.[32][33] He portrays counterterrorism operative Saul Berenson, protagonist Carrie Mathison's (Danes) mentor. For his performance, Patinkin has been nominated for a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award, among other honors. Explaining what he learned from the character, he stated, "The line between good and evil runs through each one of us."[34]

Patinkin was announced as playing the role of Pierre in the Broadway musical Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 starting August 15, 2017.[35] He was to have a limited run through September 3, replacing former Hamilton star Okieriete Onaodowan,[36] but Patinkin dropped out of the role before performing.[37]

In 2018, Patinkin returned to recorded music with the album Diary: January 27, 2018 which was produced by pianist Thomas Bartlett.[38]

In 2022, Patinkin was the narrator of the miniseries Indivisible: Healing Hate,[39] a Paramount+ show documenting the events that led to the January 6 United States Capitol attack.