Timothy Olyphant — Acting | Biography, Movies & Career

Biography

Timothy David Olyphant (/ˈɒlɪfənt/ OL-ih-fənt; born May 20, 1968) is an American actor. He made his acting debut at an off-Broadway theatre in 1995 in The Monogamist, won the Theatre World Award for his performance, and then originated David Sedaris' The Santaland Diaries in 1996. He then branched out to film; in the early years of his career, he was often cast in supporting villainous roles, most notably in Scream 2 (1997), Go (1999), Gone in 60 Seconds and The Broken Hearts Club (2000), A Man Apart (2003), and The Girl Next Door (2004).

He came to a broader audience through his portrayal of Sheriff Seth Bullock in HBO's western Deadwood (2004–2006), later reprising the role in Deadwood: The Movie (2019). He had starring roles in films such as Catch and Release (2006), Hitman (2007), A Perfect Getaway (2009), and The Crazies (2010), and he played the main antagonist, Thomas Gabriel, in Live Free or Die Hard (2007). Olyphant was a recurring guest star in season two of the FX legal thriller Damages (2009).

From 2010 to 2015, Olyphant starred as Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens in FX's modern-day Kentucky southern gothic Justified, a performance for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 2011. Since the end of Justified, Olyphant has starred in films such as Mother's Day (2016), Snowden (2016), Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), and Amsterdam (2022). He has also had notable guest appearances in numerous television sitcoms, including The Office (2010), The Mindy Project (2013), and The Grinder (2015–2016), for which he won a Critics' Choice Award. He also starred in the Netflix comedy series Santa Clarita Diet (2017–2019). In 2020, he played himself in a brief cameo, parodying his Justified character, in the NBC award-winning show The Good Place. In the same year, he guest-starred in season 10 of Curb Your Enthusiasm, as well as in the fourth season of Fargo and the second season of The Mandalorian in the episode "Chapter 9: The Marshal" as Cobb Vanth, a role he later reprised in The Book of Boba Fett. In 2025, he starred in a main role in the FX series Alien: Earth.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Timothy Olyphant, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.