Liev Schreiber

Liev Schreiber was born Isaac Liev Schreiber on October 4, 1967, in San Francisco, California. He grew up in New York and trained at Hampshire College before earning a master’s degree from the Yale School of Drama. His early career quickly established him as a serious theatre actor in America.

He made his film debut in the comedy Mixed Nuts (1994), but stage work became the foundation of his reputation. Schreiber won a Tony Award for playing Richard Roma in the 2005 Broadway revival of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross. He received Tony nominations for Talk Radio and A View from the Bridge.

On screen, Schreiber became known for intense, morally conflicted characters. In RKO 281 (1999), he portrayed Orson Welles during the making of Citizen Kane, earning Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. He played Cotton Weary in Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet, Sabretooth in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Martin Baron in the Oscar-winning Spotlight (2015).

His role as Marty Baron in Spotlight connected him to a film about The Boston Globe’s investigation into clergy sexual abuse and institutional concealment. The ensemble drama won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Schreiber appeared in The Manchurian Candidate (2004), The Omen (2006), Defiance (2008), and The Butler (2013).

Television brought Schreiber his most sustained popular role. In Showtime’s Ray Donovan (2013–2020), he played a Los Angeles fixer who solved crises for wealthy clients while struggling with his violent father Mickey, portrayed by Jon Voight. The series earned Schreiber multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for its lead performance.

Schreiber reprised Ray Donovan in Ray Donovan: The Movie (2022), which he co-wrote with series creator David Hollander and executive produced. The film continued Ray’s story after the television finale, placing him between family loyalty, criminal obligations, and the consequences of his past. It gave the character a concluding chapter.

As a director, Schreiber made Everything Is Illuminated (2005), adapted from Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel. The film follows an American man searching Ukraine for the woman who saved his grandfather during World War II. Schreiber wrote and directed the short film Big Night (1996), showing interest in filmmaking behind cameras.

Across these projects, Schreiber has balanced mainstream filmmaking with classical theatre. He performed Shakespearean roles including Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, and Henry V, and returned to Broadway in 2024 as Father Flynn in Doubt: A Parable. Beyond acting, he is a respected narrator of documentaries and a distinctive voice.