Brian Dennehy Actor

Brian Dennehy has maintained a strong presence in film, theatre, and television for three decades.  He has twice won the Tony Award for Best Actor, honored for playing ‘James Tyrone’ in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and for playing ‘Willy Loman’ in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.  The latter production was also filmed for Showtime with Dennehy also serving as executive producer. The television version subsequently earned Dennehy a Golden Globe® Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Emmy® Award nomination. He revived the role of ‘Willy Loman’ in London's West End in 2005 for which he received the coveted Olivier Award for Best Actor.  Most recently, he played ‘Ephraim Cabot’ in the Broadway production of Desire Under the Elms for which he received favorable reviews.

Dennehy is well-known to audiences worldwide for his performances in such popular films as Semi-Tough, Foul Play, 10, First Blood, Cocoon, F/X, Presumed Innocent, Tommy Boy and Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet.  His other notable screen credits include Gorky Park, Never Cry Wolf, Finders Keepers, Silverado, Twice in a Lifetime, Best Seller, The Belly of an Architect (for which he received Best Actor honors at the Chicago Film Festival), Spike Lee’s She Hate Me, 10th & Wolf, Righteous Kill and Meet Monica Velour.  He voiced the role of Babe Ruth in Everyone’s Hero and was the voice of Remy’s father, ‘Django,’ in the hit film Ratatouille.  As for 2010, Dennehy has completed work on the features Alleged; Every Day, with Liev Schreiber and Helen Hunt; and most recently, he worked on the new Jack Black starrer The Big Year, directed by David Frankel.  Denney is also executive producing and writing the independent feature, Redemption, which is in active development.

Dennehy has starred in a wide range of television projects, receiving Emmy® Award nominations for his performances in the miniseries “The Burden of Proof,” “Murder in the Heartland,” “To Catch a Killer” (in which he played ‘John Wayne Gacy’), and Stephen Gyllenhaal's telefilm “Killing in a Small Town.” His characterization of police investigator ‘Jack Reed’ anchored a successful series of telefilms that he starred in for NBC throughout the 1990s, several of which he executive produced, co-wrote, and directed. He also directed and starred in the telefilms “Shadow of a Doubt” (which he co-wrote and co-produced) and “Indefensible.” In 2005, Dennehy received his fifth Emmy® nomination, this time for Best Supporting Actor in Showtime’s “Our Fathers.” In 2010, Dennehy starred in the Untitled Dana Gould Pilot for ABC and guest starred in both “Rizzoli & Isles” for TNT and the FOX pilot “Pleading Guilty.”

Brian has been associated for two decades with Chicago's Goodman Theatre (on whose Board he serves), where he has starred in numerous productions including Galileo; Desire Under the Elms, which he also took to Broadway; and most recently performed a one-man repertory production of Eugene O’Neill’s Hughie in conjunction with Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. His other notable stage work includes the Broadway production of Translations; All’s Well That Ends Well at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, Canada; Krapp’s Last Tape at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival; Hughie at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, the Trinity Repertory Theatre, and the Long Wharf Theatre; Peter Brook's production of The Cherry Orchard at the Brooklyn Academy of Music; Richard Nelson’s Conversations in Tusculum at The Public Theatre in New York; Trumbo, which he starred in Off-Broadway and on tour; Wisdom Bridge Theatre's production of Rat in the Skull; Says I, Says He at both The Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and The Phoenix Theatre in N.Y.; and The Exonerated, in which he starred Off-Broadway and on tour.  He also starred in the Court TV film version of the play.

After this fall’s performances in John B. Keane’s The Field, Dennehy will next be on stage the summer of 2011 at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival performing the roles of ‘Sir Toby Belch’ in Twelfth Night and ‘Max’ in The Homecoming.


2011 The Big Year
2011 Alleged
2010 The Next Three Days - Paul Haggis
2010 Meet Monica Velour
2010 Every Day
2008 Righteous Kill - Jon Avnet
2008 Cat City
2008 30 Rock - TV
2007 War Eagle, Arkansas
2007 Welcome to Paradise
2007 Maestros de la ciencia ficción - TV
2007 Stolen Summer - Pete Jones
2007 10th & Wolf - Bobby Moresco
2007 Everyone's Hero - Colin Brady
2007 Our fathers - Dan Curtis (TV)
2007 Ratatouille -  Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava
2005 Le Choc des tempêtes - Dick Lowry
2005 Assaut sur le central 13 - Jean-Francois Richet  
2005 Assault on Precinct 13 - Jean-François Richet
2004 She hate me - Spike Lee
2002 Stolen Summer
2001 Summer Catch - Michael Tollin
1999 Silicon Towers - Serge Rodnunsky 
1999 Out of the Cold
1998 Dish Dogs
1997 Roméo + Juliette - Baz Luhrmann
1995 Stars Fell on Henrietta
1995 Tommy Boy
1992 Gladiator - Rowdy Herrington
1991 F/X2 - Richard Franklin
1990 Presumed Innocent
1990 The Last of the Finest - John Mackenzie
1989 Indio
1989 Georg Elser - Einer aus Deutschland
1991 Miles from Home
1988 Return to Snowy River
1988 Best Seller
1987 The Belly of an Architect - Peter Greenaway
1986 The Check Is in the Mail
1986 Legal Eagles - Ivan Reitman
1985 Silverado - Lawrence Kasdan
1985 Twice in a Lifetime - Bud Yorkin
1985 Cacoon - Ron Howard
1984 The River Rat
1984 Cash-cash
1984 Gorky Park - Michael Apted
1984 Never Cry Wolf - Thomas Rickman
1982 Captured
1983 Rambo - Ted Kotcheff
1980 la Puce et le grincheux
1979 Butch and Sundance: The Early Days
1978 Drôle d'embrouille
1978 Faux-durs
1978 F.I.S.T de Norman Jewison
1977 À la recherche de Mister Goodbar de Richard Brooks

More