Bradley Whitford

Whitford first appeared on television in a 1985 episode of The Equalizer, followed by a two-year recurring role on the ABC daytime drama All My Children. His film debut was in the 1986 film Dead as a Doorman. He made his Broadway theatre debut in 1990 playing Lt. Jack Ross (followed a few months later in the lead role of Lt. Daniel Kaffee), in the Aaron Sorkin written play A Few Good Men. This was the beginning of a recurring working relationship between Whitford and Sorkin.

Whitford's film roles during the 1980s and 1990s included Elisabeth Shue's boyfriend Mike Todwell in Adventures in Babysitting (1987), Roger Latimer in Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise (1987), Jamie Kemp in Presumed Innocent (1990), Charles Phalen in Young Guns II (1990), Dr. Tyler in Awakenings (1990), Al Pacino's nephew Randy Slade in Scent of a Woman (1992), FBI sharpshooter Bobby Lee in A Perfect World (1993), lawyer Jamey Collins in Philadelphia (1993), Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Fink in The Client (1994), antagonist Eric Gordon in Billy Madison (1995), and Lloyd Charney in Bicentennial Man (1999). His television appearances during this time included Guiding Light, NYPD Blue, Ellen, The X-Files, Touched by an Angel, and a guest appearance on ER in the Emmy Award-winning episode "Love's Labor Lost".

Whitford joined the cast of Sorkin's The West Wing as Josh Lyman with the show's premiere in 1999. For his role, he won an Emmy Award in 2001 for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Whitford also wrote two episodes of the series ("Faith Based Initiative" in the sixth season and "Internal Displacement" in the seventh). After The West Wing ended in May 2006, Whitford appeared in Sorkin's later series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip playing the role of Danny Tripp. He appeared in the British drama Burn Up on the BBC in July 2008.

He starred in the play Boeing-Boeing which opened on Broadway on May 4, 2008. He co-starred in the Joss Whedon/Drew Goddard horror film The Cabin in the Woods, filmed in 2009 but not released until April 2012. In 2010, Whitford starred as Dan Stark in the Fox TV comedy The Good Guys opposite Colin Hanks. In 2011, Whitford guest-starred in In Plain Sight on USA Network as a man combatting paranoia. He appeared in the season three finale of The Mentalist as a minion of and decoy for "Red John", the long-sought nemesis of the show's protagonist Patrick Jane. Whitford appeared on Law & Order: Los Angeles as a lawyer. On September 15, 2011, he starred in the one-night-only staged reading of 8, a play that chronicles the trial surrounding California's Proposition 8, written by Dustin Lance Black.

In 2013, Whitford played Pete Harrison in the ABC comedy Trophy Wife, which was canceled after one season, and also that same year played Don DaGradi in the drama film Saving Mr. Banks. In 2014, Whitford appeared in a recurring role as a cross-dressing businessman during the first season of the Amazon Studios series Transparent. He went on to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance. He returned during the series' second season as Magnus Hirschfeld. In February 2014, it was announced that he was cast in Randall Miller's Midnight Rider, a biopic of Gregg Allman. Starting in 2015, Whitford had a recurring role in Brooklyn Nine-Nine as Roger Peralta, father of lead character Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg). In 2017, Whitford played Dean Armitage, a father and neurosurgeon, in the racially themed horror film Get Out, and antagonist Arthur Parsons in the political thriller The Post.

In 2018, Whitford played President Gray in the dystopian science fiction film The Darkest Minds, and joined the cast of the web dystopian tragedy The Handmaid's Tale as Commander Joseph Lawrence, guest starring in the final two episodes of the second season. He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 2019 for his performance and became the first person to have won the guest acting Emmy Awards for both comedy and drama. He returned as a series regular for the third season and garnered a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. In 2019, Whitford played Rick Stanton in the monster film Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and from 2019 to 2020, he starred in the musical comedy series Perfect Harmony, which ran for one season on NBC.

In August 2023, he portrayed Francis in the Los Angeles production of Peter Pan Goes Wrong.