James Spader

James Todd Spader (born February 7, 1960) is an American actor and producer. He has portrayed eccentric characters in films such as the drama Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), the action science fiction film Stargate (1994), the controversial psychological thriller Crash (1996), the erotic romance Secretary (2002) and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012). He also voiced and performed motion-capture of the titular character of Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015).

His television roles include those of attorney Alan Shore in the last season of The Practice (1997–2004) and its spin-off Boston Legal (2004–2008) (for which he won three Emmy Awards), and Robert California in the comedy-mockumentary The Office (2005–2013). He currently stars as high-profile criminal-turned-FBI-informant Raymond “Red” Reddington in the NBC crime drama The Blacklist (2013–present) for which he has earned two Golden Globe Award nominations.

Early life

Spader was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and is the youngest of three children. His parents, Jean (née Fraser) and Stoddard (“Todd”) Greenwood Spader, were both teachers. Spader grew up in a progressive home surrounded by “dominant and influential women … that left a great impression”. During his early education, he attended multiple private schools, including The Pike School, where his mother taught art, and the Brooks School in North Andover, Massachusetts, where his father taught. He later transferred to Phillips Academy, where he befriended former President’s son John F. Kennedy, Jr., before dropping out at the age of seventeen and moving to New York City to pursue his acting career. On his way to becoming a full-time actor, Spader undertook jobs such as bartending, teaching yoga, driving a meat truck, loading railroad cars, and being a stable boy.

Career

Spader’s first major film role was in the film Endless Love (1981), and his first starring role was in Tuff Turf (1985). He rose to stardom in 1986, when he played the rich, arrogant playboy Steff in Pretty in Pink. He co-starred in Mannequin (1987) and the film adaptation of Less Than Zero (1987), in which he played a drug dealer named Rip. Supporting roles in films such as Baby Boom (1987) and Wall Street (1987) followed until his breakthrough in Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), in which he played a sexual voyeur who complicates the lives of three Baton Rouge, Louisiana residents. For this performance, he received the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Spader’s roles in the early 1990s included a young, affluent widower opposite Susan Sarandon in the romantic drama White Palace (1990), a yuppie who meets the mysterious Rob Lowe in the Noir drama Bad Influence (1990), John Cusack’s best friend in the drama True Colors (1991), and a poker-playing drifter in The Music of Chance (1993). In 1994 he starred as Egyptologist Daniel Jackson in the sci-fi film Stargate. In 1996 he played car accident fetishist James Ballard in the controversial Canadian film Crash and assassin Lee Woods in 2 Days in the Valley. In 1997 Spader guest starred in the Seinfeld episode “The Apology”, as an angry recovering alcoholic who refuses to apologize to George for making fun of him. In 2000 he played a drug-addicted detective tracking down a serial killer in The Watcher. In 2002 he starred as a sadomasochistic boss in Secretary.

From 2004 to 2008 Spader starred as Alan Shore in the series Boston Legal, in which he reprised his role from the television series The Practice (2002). Longtime writer-producer David E. Kelley said of the resistance when he first tried to cast Spader in the role, “I was told that no one would ever welcome James Spader into their living room.” Kelley said at a TV Game Changers interview, “People will watch him in the movies, but they will never let him in their own home.”

He won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 2004 for his portrayal on The Practice and won it again in 2005 and 2007 for Boston Legal. With the 2005 win, he became one of only a few actors to win an Emmy award while playing the same character in two series. Even rarer, he won a second consecutive Emmy while playing the same character in two series. He also won the Satellite Award for Best Actor in a Series, Comedy or Musical for Boston Legal in 2006.

In October 2006 Spader narrated “China Revealed”, the first episode of Discovery Channel’s documentary series Discovery Atlas. He has also done the voice-over in several television commercials for Acura. He starred in Race, a play written and directed by David Mamet, which opened on December 6, 2009 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway. The show closed on August 21, 2010, after 297 performances. In March 2011, he was named to star in the film By Virtue Fall, written and to be directed by Sheldon Turner. As of June 2011, the movie was in pre-production.

Spader guest starred as Robert California in “Search Committee”, the season 7 finale of The Office. On June 27, 2011, it was announced that he would join the cast on a permanent basis. He planned to stay only through the eighth season, and while the original plan was just to do the guest appearance, executive producer Paul Lieberstein said: “those two scenes became a season”.

Spader stars in the NBC series The Blacklist, which premiered on NBC September 23, 2013. He portrays Raymond “Red” Reddington, one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives. He also played villainous robot Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015).

Personal life

Spader met his first wife, decorator Victoria Kheel, while working in a yoga studio after he moved to New York City in the 1980s. They married in 1987 and had two sons. Spader filed for divorce from Kheel in 2004. He began dating his former Alien Hunter (2003) co-star, Leslie Stefanson, in 2002; they have one son.

Spader has said he has strong obsessive-compulsive issues.

Spader is a sixth-generation descendant of Connecticut politician Seth P. Beers.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1981	Endless Love	Keith Butterfield	Credited as Jimmy Spader
1985	Tuff Turf	Morgan Hiller
1985	The New Kids	Eddie “Dutra” Dutra
1986	Pretty in Pink	Steff
1987	Mannequin	Richards
1987	Baby Boom	Ken Arrenberg
1987	Less Than Zero	Rip
1987	Wall Street	Roger Barnes
1988	Greasy Lake	Digby	Short Film
1988	Jack’s Back	John / Rick Westford
1989	Sex, Lies, and Videotape	Graham Dalton
1989	The Rachel Papers	Deforest
1990	Bad Influence	Michael Boll
1990	White Palace	Max Baron
1991	True Colors	Tim Gerrity
1992	Storyville	Cray Fowler
1992	Bob Roberts	Chuck Marlin
1993	The Music of Chance	Jack Pozzi
1993	Dream Lover	Ray Reardon
1994	Wolf	Stewart Swinton
1994	Stargate	Dr. Daniel Jackson
1996	Crash	James Ballard
1996	2 Days in the Valley	Lee Woods
1997	Keys to Tulsa	Ronnie Stover
1997	Driftwood	The Man
1997	Critical Care	Dr. Werner Ernst
1998	Curtain Call	Stevenson Lowe
2000	Supernova	Nick Vanzant
2000	The Watcher	Joel Campbell
2000	Slow Burn	Marcus
2001	Speaking of Sex	Dr. Roger Klink
2002	Secretary	E. Edward Grey
2002	The Stickup	John Parker
2003	I Witness	Douglas Draper
2003	Alien Hunter	Julian Rome
2004	Shadow of Fear	William Ashbury
2009	Shorts	Mr. Black
2012	Lincoln	William N. Bilbo
2014	The Homesman	Aloysius Duffy
2015	Avengers: Age of Ultron	Ultron	Voice Motion capture

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1983	Diner	Fenwick	Television Short
1983	The Family Tree	Jake Nichols	6 episodes
1983	Cocaine: One Man’s Seduction	Buddy Gant	Television film
1983	A Killer in the Family	Donny Tison	Television film
1984	Family Secrets	Lowell Everall	Television film
1985	Starcrossed	Joey Callaghan	Television film
1994	Frasier	Steven (voice)	Episode: “Slow Tango in South Seattle”
1997	Seinfeld	Jason “Stanky” Hanky	Episode: “The Apology”
2003	The Pentagon Papers	Daniel Ellsberg	Television film
2003–2004	The Practice	Alan Shore	22 episodes
2004–2008	Boston Legal	Alan Shore	101 episodes
2006	Discovery Atlas	Narrator (voice)	Episode: “China Revealed”
2011–2012	The Office	Robert California	25 episodes
2013–present	The Blacklist	Raymond “Red” Reddington	Also executive producer