Eric McCormack American Actor Known for Travelers

Early life

Eric McCormack was born on 18 April 1963 in Toronto. He took part in theatre from an early age and attended Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate Institute in Scarborough, Ontario, where he joined drama classes and appeared in school productions of Godspell and Pippin. After finishing school in 1982 he enrolled in the theatre school at Ryerson University, now Toronto Metropolitan University. In 1985, a few months before he would have graduated, he left to take a place at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, where he spent five seasons. His stage roles there included productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Henry V, Murder in the Cathedral and Three Sisters. He also worked with the Manitoba Theatre Centre and Toronto's Royal Alexandra Theatre.

Career

McCormack made his Canadian television debut in the 1986 movie The Boys from Syracuse. After moving to Los Angeles, he made his first United States television appearance in a 1991 episode of Top Cops. His earliest listed screen credit is the series Street Justice (1991), in which he later had a recurring role as a detective. In 1992 he appeared in the films The Lost World and Return to the Lost World, and he played Colonel Francis Clay Mosby in 42 episodes of Lonesome Dove: The Series. Further television films followed, among them The Man Who Wouldn't Die (1994), Borrowed Hearts (1997) and Exception to the Rule (1997).

In 1998 he was cast as the lawyer Will Truman in the NBC sitcom Will & Grace, which first aired on 21 September of that year and ran until its finale on 18 May 2006. The role became his best-known. In the same year he appeared in the film Holy Man, and in 1999 he starred in Free Enterprise. In 2000 he played Mel Ferrer in the television film The Audrey Hepburn Story. In 2001 he stepped in for a short run as Harold Hill in the Broadway revival of The Music Man, and in November 2002 he hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live. Later in the decade he had a recurring part in Dead Like Me (2004), starred in the film The Sisters (2005), which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, and led the New York cast of Neil LaBute's play Some Girl(s).

After the sitcom's first run, he co-starred in the miniseries The Andromeda Strain (2008), took a guest role in an episode of Monk, and led the TNT drama Trust Me (2009), which ran for one season. He was also in the science-fiction film Alien Trespass and in My One and Only, both released in 2009. He played the con artist Clark Rockefeller, using the name Christian Gerhartsreiter, in the television movie Who Is Clark Rockefeller? (2010). From 2012 he starred as the neuroscientist Daniel Pierce in Perception, which he also produced, and he voiced the character Lucky in the animated series Pound Puppies. In 2012 he also played Senator Joseph Cantwell on Broadway in The Best Man.

Will & Grace returned to NBC in the 2017-18 season, with McCormack once more playing Will Truman. In the same period he starred as Grant MacLaren in the science-fiction series Travelers, which first aired in October 2016 and lasted three seasons, and he appeared in the Netflix series Atypical. In 2023 he took roles in the fifth season of Slasher and in The Other Black Girl, and he performed on Broadway in The Cottage. His company, Big Cattle Productions, has developed television projects, including Lovespring International. In all, the records list about 30 screen credits from 1991 to 2023.

Recognition

McCormack won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in 2001 for Will & Grace, one of four Emmy nominations he earned for the role, and the performance also brought him several Golden Globe nominations. In 2003 he received the GLAAD Vanguard Award. In June 2010 he was given the NBC Universal Canada Award of Distinction at the Banff TV Festival, and in October 2010 he received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame. A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was added in 2018.

Personal life

McCormack became an American citizen in 1999 and also holds Canadian citizenship. He keeps homes in Los Angeles and Vancouver. In 2004 he sang both the American and Canadian national anthems at the NHL All-Star Game in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has supported charitable organisations in Los Angeles and Canada, including Project Angel Food.