Leland Orser

Born and raised in San Francisco, CA, Orser didn't show much interest in acting as a child and spent his 20s traveling through the U.S. and Europe in pursuit of a career as an international banker. In 1987 he eloped to Italy with actress Roma Downey, and though their marriage ended just two years later, Orser's newfound enthusiasm for acting did not. He made his TV debut in 1991 on the legal drama "Gabriel's Fire" (ABC, 1990-91), and quickly racked up guest roles on such NBC hits as "Golden Girls" (1985-1992) and "Cheers" (1982-1993). In 1993 he landed his first film role in "Cover Story," where he portrayed a flashy homosexual who just happens to be a drug dealer. As intense as it was, it didn't hold a candle to his performance a few years later in "Se7en" as an unfortunate massage parlor patron forced to kill a prostitute in a gruesomely novel fashion. But a little bit of horror never hurt anybody. After a steady string of supporting roles in everything from the bawdy "Married with Children" (Fox, 1987-1997) to the highly anticipated (and universally disappointing) "Escape from L.A." (1996) and "Alien Resurrection" (1997), Orser was cast in his biggest role yet as Charles Moore, Jon Favreau's best man, in the pitch-black comedy "Very Bad Things." Though the widely panned film marked the second time Orser played a character who had to deal with a dead prostitute, one bright spot was co-star Jeanne Tripplehorn, whom he married in 2000. Another bright spot was the exposure he received, which led to a role as a vengeance-seeking medical technician in 1999's serial killer thriller "The Bone Collector," starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. The 2000s saw Orser appear in increasingly high-profile projects like Michael Bay's "Pearl Harbor" (2001), where he portrayed a injured Army officer; and the long-running medical series "ER," which he joined in 2004 as talented but arrogant surgeon Lucien Dubenko. After being cast as a ruthless anti-Nazi investigator in Steven Soderbergh's noir experiment "The Good German" (2006), in 2007 Orser wrote and directed the short film "Morning," about a couple's struggle to move on after a devastating loss. In a creative 180, Orser next appeared as Sam, Liam Neeson's best friend and former colleague, in the surprise hit revenge film "Taken" (2008), and, after leaving "ER" in 2009, portrayed wily political consultant Martin Collier on "24." In 2010 Orser expanded "Morning" into a full-length film starring Tripplehorn and himself as the grieving parents. Orser continued his small-screen success in 2013 when he was cast as John Sanborn, a high-strung weapons expert, on J.J. Abrams' popular post-apocalyptic drama "Revolution."