Richard Jenkins Biography

Richard Jenkins was a veteran actor when he landed his first leading screen role, in 2007’s The Visitor, which earned him an Oscar nomination.

He was nominated a second time for his supporting role in Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water (2017, starry Sally Hawkins).

Jenkins graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1969, and landed his first theater job in Providence, Rhode Island soon after. He and his wife stayed there and raised a family, while he stayed with a Providence theater company.

He branched out into movie acting with a couple of lines in Silverado (1985), and a better — though small — role in The Witches of Eastwick (1987).

A character actor with a world-weary face, he gained a loyal audience for his portrayal of the deceased father in the TV series Six Feet Under (2001-2005), and comedy fans know him as the dad in the Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly movie Step Brothers (2008).

His other films include the Farrelly brothers comedies There’s Something About Mary (1998), Me, Myself & Irene (2000) and Say It Isn’t So (2001), and the Coen brothers movies The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001), Intolerable Cruelty (2003) and Burn After Reading (2008).

Jenkins has also appeared in the television productions Olive Kitteridge (2014, with Frances McDormand, and he won an Emmy) and Berlin Station (2016).