- Born
- Height5′ 10″ (1.78 m)
- Eric Bogosian was born in Boston and grew up in Woburn, Massachusetts. After graduating from Woburn Memorial High School in 1971, he attended the University of Chicago and graduated from Oberlin College in 1976, whereupon he moved to New York City. In New York he was hired by the Kitchen as an assistant, established a dance series there and after five years left to devote all his energies to his theater work. Between 1976 and 1982, Bogosian wrote, directed and/or starred in over sixteen productions Off-Off-Broadway. In 1982, he toured the Midwest with Fab Five Freddy and the Rock Steady Crew.
In the early 1980's Eric Bogosian became well-known in New York for his intense one-man theater pieces, winning the Obie Award three times as well as the Drama Desk Award. In 1983, after attending one of his one-man shows, Larry Cohen cast Bogosian as the homicidal director in his low-budget film Special Effects (1984). Four years later, Bogosian's Pulitzer-nominated play, (in which he also starred), "Talk Radio" caught the attention of the greater film world. Robert Altman cast Bogosian in his film of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (1988) while producer Edward R. Pressman obtained the rights to the play and brought it to director Oliver Stone. Stone and Bogosian adapted the play script to film script, Bogosian again played the lead and the film of Talk Radio (1988) opened in December 1988. Bogosian received the prestigious "Silver Bear" at the 1989 Berlin Festival for his work on the film.
After the release of "Talk Radio", Bogosian worked regularly as an actor in film and television while remaining very active in the theater. 1994 was a banner year in which Bogosian co-starred with Steven Seagal in Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995) as the diabolical "Travis Dane", was featured in Dolores Claiborne (1995), staged another one-man show Off-Broadway and authored the play, "subUrbia" directed by Robert Falls and produced by Lincoln Center Theater, ("subUrbia" was adapted for film by director Richard Linklater). Around this time, Bogosian would also cameo appearances in Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry (1997), Atom Egoyan's Ararat (2002), Cindy Sherman's Office Killer (1997) and Mike Judge's Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996).
In the 1990's Bogosian continued to write for film and TV, adapting his own work as well as receiving assignments from studios. He began to write for television when he was invited to co-create a show for Steven Spielberg: High Incident (1996) in 1996. As an actor, in 2003, he co-starred with Val Kilmer as the notorious Eddie Nash in James Cox's Wonderland (2003). In 2006 he was invited onboard Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001) as Captain Danny Ross (where he appeared in over sixty episodes).
In 2010, Bogosian starred on Broadway in Donald Margulies' "Time Stands Still" with Laura Linney, Brian d'Arcy James, Alicia Silverstone and Christina Ricci.
In 2013, Bogosian created a website featuring his numerous monologues performed by notable actors. Visit 100monologues.com to view the complete catalog of over 75 monologues.
More recently, Bogosian landed a series of featured television roles on Netflix's The Get Down (2016), Showtime's Billions (2016) and as Senator Gil Eavis on HBO's Succession (2018).
Bogosian has been featured in Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie's Uncut Gems (2019) (starring Adam Sandler).
In addition to his numerous plays, Bogosian is the author of three novels "Mall", "Wasted Beauty" and "Perforated Heart." His non-fiction history, Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide was published by Little, Brown in 2015.
He lives in New York City with his wife, director Jo Bonney with whom he has two children; Travis Bogosian and Harry Bogosian.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Philip Rinaldi
- SpouseJo Bonney(October 10, 1980 - present) (2 children)
- ChildrenHarry Bogosian
- ParentsEdwina Bogosian (Jamgochian)Henry Bogosian
- Frequently works with John C. McGinley
- Curly black hair
- Often plays sarcastic intellectuals with very high opinions of themselves
- In 2005, he was critically acclaimed in his role as Satan in the play The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
- In 1986 Bogosian recorded an album with Frank Zappa. It is titled "Blood On the Canvas" and exists only as a bootleg out of Japan. Can be found on youtube.
- Was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his play Talk Radio.
- Is of Armenian descent.
- In the early 1990s, he wrote, produced, and starred in "Pounding Nails in the Floor With My Forehead," one of a series of one-man shows that was performed in the same off-Broadway theater where his successful "Talk Radio" originally helped propel his career.
- Plays succeed or fail as films because they are a play that should or shouldn't be a film. With the very confined Talk Radio (1988) people felt, how can you make a movie about a guy in a radio station? I thought there was plenty to see. Our cast was mostly theater people, and they were comfortable at that level of reality that got established when Oliver Stone and I made the film. You have to really decide as a playwright going into a film production, what is that level of reality going to be? Consistency of style is important.
- [on the documentary Intent to Destroy: Death, Denial & Depiction (2017)] I've seen a few films that cover the Armenian Genocide, in terms of giving the information, and I really think this is the most deft one I have seen. Nothing against the others, some of which were done by friends of mine - and I really think they're wonderful - but in terms of the evolution of trying to give so much information to the viewer in a quick amount of time, this movie really does a terrific job. There's a lot to understand here - it's World War I, the Ottoman Empire is 600 years old, so this isn't stuff that just happens overnight. I think Joe [Joe Berlinger] did a great job on it. [2017]
- [on The Promise (2016)] It's a great movie and it's certainly gotten a lot of attention. If they want to talk about box office and talk about the movie more - good. Because every time we talk about the movie, we talk about what happened. At the end of the day, the story that Turkey has been selling for a long time now is that there's some sort of debate [about the Armenian Genocide] as to whether or not this happened. So the more we can get the information out that there's no debate, then that's a success... and this movie does that. [2017]
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