Michael Lerner (actor)
Michael Lerner ( born June 22, 1941 in New York City, New York ) is an American actor.
Life
Lerner was initially trained at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, after which he attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, he received his master's degree at the University of California. In 1969, he began his acting career and had at first almost exclusively guest roles in television series. He had in 1980 in The Postman Always Rings Twice in From coast to coast, and in the following year, some of the few film roles.
His breakthrough came in 1991 with his celebrated role of film producer Jack Lipnick in Barton Fink, for which he was nominated as Best Supporting Actor Academy Award and a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award received for Best Supporting Actor. Since then he has played in comedy films such as The Road to Wellville, The Martian and Buddy - the Christmas Elf, and in the action films Escape from Absolom and Roland Emmerich's Godzilla.
In 1995, he played a starring role in the short-lived television series Courthouse, which was discontinued after eleven episodes. Between 1996 and 1997 he had a recurring role in Clueless - The chaos clique. In 2002, he starred alongside Madonna in London's West End in the theater production Up for Grabs.