MARITAL STATUS
Professions Actor , Producer , Director
Nationality American
Birth May 11, 1968 (Amesbury, Massachusetts, United States)
BIOGRAPHY
Born into a poor family that moved often, Jeffrey Donovan has shown a great interest in theater since his childhood. Thanks to a teacher, he created his troupe and obtained a scholarship allowing him to study drama. During this course, the young man also practiced various martial arts, such as Shotokan karate, aikido and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
Jeffrey Donovan found his first role in the soap opera As the World Turns in 1995. The following year, he played one of the sadistic prison guards raping the four young people incarcerated with impunity in Sleepers . But it is above all on television that he is most active, as evidenced by his appearances in the series Homicide , Millennium , Le Chaéléon and Spin City .
In 2000, the actor found a more important role in the detective series The Beat . During the 2000s, he appeared as a supporting role in various feature films: the action film Trapped (2000), the horror film Blair Witch 2: The Book of Shadows (id.), the drama Purpose (2002 ), the romantic comedy Hitch – Seduction Expert (2005) and the thriller The Exchange (2008).
After playing the investigating detective in Les Forces du mal (2004), he found the role of his life in the spy series Burn Notice . From 2007 to 2013, he played Michael Westen, a secret agent who, for reasons unknown to him, was suddenly fired by his employer. The program enjoyed significant success and allowed its performer to gain notoriety.
In 2015, Jeffrey Donovan took on another notable role in the second season of Fargo, that of Dodd Gerhardt, eldest of the terrifying mafia family operating in the wildest South Dakota. Then, in Shut Eye, he plays a failed magician and con artist who, after suffering a head shock, wonders if he is not capable of offering real predictions…
With his disturbing face, the native of Amesbury continued by playing often threatening characters (with the exception of the SF film Extinction , where he played a father seeking to protect his daughter from hordes of infected) in thrillers Sicario and its sequel , Shot Caller , Villains and One of Us , in which he plays a redneck making life difficult for Kevin Costner .
In 2020 – 2021, Jeffrey Donovan is starring in two action films: The Good Criminal with Liam Neeson and An Angry Man with Jason Statham .
Laurent Schenck
