Biography for
Michael Emerson (I) More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

7 September 1954, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA

Height

5' 8" (1.73 m)

Spouse

Carrie Preston

(5 September 1998 - present)

Trade Mark

Distinctive voice

Small, round glasses

Trivia

Is a stage actor who makes occasional films.

In 1995, he graduated from the prestigious Professional Actor Training M. F. A. program run jointly by the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and The University of Alabama Department of Theater and Dance. He turned 40 while in the program, which made him about 15 years older than the typical theater graduate student.

Graduate of Drake University, where he earned a degree in Theater Arts.

Worked as a freelance illustrator for publications like The Boston Globe and The New York Times.

On "Lost" (2004), he played Ben Linus, the son of Roger Linus, played by Jon Gries, who is actually 3 years the junior of Emerson. The age difference is explicable because Roger is first seen in flashbacks to Ben's birth and childhood. Ben's mother was played by Carrie Preston, who in addition to being (like Gries) somewhat younger than Emerson, is also his real-life wife.

Emerson graduated from South Tama County High School in Tama, Iowa.

Michael Emerson met his now-wife, Carrie Preston, during the mid-1990s, when they both appeared in a production of "Hamlet" at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Preston played "Ophelia" and Emerson played "Guildenstern" in the production.

Close friends with Terry O'Quinn.

Did not have his first starring role in a play until he was 43 years old.

Personal Quotes

I've had the blessing of doing classic plays on Broadway, which was one of my great dreams forever.

It worries me a little bit the reach and power of TV. More people saw me in "The Practice" (1997) than will ever see me in all the stage plays I ever do. Which is sort of humbling. Or troubling. Or both.

[about doing Unfaithful (2002)] You work four days, and then one line is left when you see it. Demoralizing.

A better question might be what is it about those characters that appeals to audiences, or an even better question is why do audiences perceive them as creepy? Let's say I got to the studio one day and I play it in neutral - I don't make any judgment about the character or the material or anything. And then when it comes out and it's all chopped together and there's music and stuff, people go 'my God that's scary!' But I don't know what the scary element is. I don't know if it's something in me. I don't know if it's in the playing of it or the perceiving of it. It's an interesting issue, though. - asked why he's drawn to playing "creepy" characters