Billy Crudup (born July 8, 1968, Manhasset, New York, U.S.) is an American stage and screen actor who has had a long and steady career playing complex characters within an ensemble cast. He is perhaps best known for his roles as rock star Russell Hammond in Almost Famous (2000) and as network executive Cory Ellison in the streaming series The Morning Show (2019– ).

Early life and education

Born in Manhasset, a New York City suburb on Long Island, Crudup is the middle son of three born to Georgann Crudup (née Gaither) and Thomas Henry Crudup III. He later described his father as a gambler, hustler, loan shark, and bookie and his childhood as itinerant, having been spent in Florida and Texas as well as New York. His parents divorced, remarried, and divorced again, but his mother tried to give her sons a more stable upbringing, at one point doing advertising work for local political parties in Dallas.

Crudup graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1990 and then earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in acting from New York University’s (NYU’s) Tisch School of the Arts in 1994. He told NPR in 2023 that, while at school, theater director Zelda Fichandler gave a speech in which she encouraged students to build an acting career that was sustainable and allowed them to reflect, pivot, and grow. Her talk has seemingly guided Crudup’s practice, which has been long, and, though peppered with leading parts, has been made up primarily of diverse supporting roles.

Early roles and breakout performance in Almost Famous

Within a year of graduating from NYU Crudup was performing on Broadway, appearing in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia (1995), for which he won the Outer Critics Circle outstanding newcomer award, and in William Inge’s Bus Stop (1996). Crudup also quickly landed roles on the big screen, including in Barry Levinson’s Sleepers (1996), Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You (1996), Pat O’Connor’s Inventing the Abbotts (1997), Stephen Frears’s The Hi-Lo Country (1998), and Alison Maclean’s Jesus’ Son (1999). He also had a few lead parts—as a parolee who falls for his brother’s wife in Grind (1997), American long-distance runner Steve Prefontaine in Without Limits (1998), and a congressional candidate haunted by his deceased girlfriend in Waking the Dead (2000). His breakout performance, however, was in Cameron Crowe’s 2000 film Almost Famous, playing a musician based on American guitarist Glenn Frey, who performed in the 1970s country rock band the Eagles.

MasterCard commercials

In the late 1990s Crudup also happened to secure a lucrative deal to voice a MasterCard ad campaign. For 13 years he narrated the television commercials that ended with the catchphrase “There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s MasterCard.” Though he initially considered the opportunity a chore, Crudup came to realize that the job allowed him to be selective about his acting roles while making a living. He thus often resisted playing the heroic leading man, preferring more-complicated characters.

Roles from the early 2000s and split from Mary-Louise Parker

Crudup subsequently performed onstage in The Elephant Man (2002) and had supporting parts in such films as Gillian Armstrong’s Charlotte Gray (2001) and Tim Burton’s Big Fish (2003). About this time, he split from his longtime girlfriend, actress Mary-Louise Parker, who was then pregnant with their son, William Atticus Parker, and began dating Claire Danes, his costar in the film Stage Beauty (2004). The new relationship became the subject of unwelcome tabloid attention, but Crudup never commented on the situation. Indeed, the actor has a reputation for being guarded about his personal life. He told The New York Times in 2023, “I figured the more people knew about me, the harder it would be for me to convince them that I was somebody else.”

Screen roles from the late 2000s and the ’10s

Crudup continued to work steadily, with roles in Trust the Man (2005), Mission: Impossible III (2006), The Good Shepherd (2006), Public Enemies (2009), and Watchmen (2009). In 2006 he appeared in the first two parts of Stoppard’s trilogy The Coast of Utopia at Lincoln Center, New York City, and won the Tony Award for best featured actor in a play. In the early 2010s he played the husband of Julia Roberts’s character in the movie Eat Pray Love (2010), a cop pursuing his brother (played by Clive Owen) in Blood Ties (2013), and a lawyer who represents a number of victims who have been sexually abused by Roman Catholic priests in Spotlight (2015). Movies from the late 2010s include Jackie (2016), 20th Century Women (2016), Alien: Covenant (2017), After the Wedding (2019), and Where’d You Go, Bernadette (2019). In addition, Crudup made his streaming series debut, performing in Gypsy (2017) as the husband of a therapist (Naomi Watts) who becomes too involved in her patients’ lives.

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Stage roles from the 2010s and The Morning Show

Crudup’s onstage performances from the 2010s include Arcadia (2011), No Man’s Land (2013), and Waiting for Godot (2013). In 2017 he portrayed each of the 19 characters in David Cale’s Harry Clarke. After seeing Crudup in the one-man play, actress Jennifer Aniston insisted that he join the cast of the streaming series The Morning Show (2019– ), which she was coproducing. Crudup took the role of Cory Ellison, whose character ultimately ascends to CEO of the fictional UBA network. He received critical acclaim for his performance. Indeed, GQ magazine declared in 2019 that “Billy Crudup Is the Best Part of The Morning Show.” Moreover, Crudup won two Emmy Awards (2020, 2024) for best supporting actor in a drama series.

Hello Tomorrow! and marriage to Naomi Watts

Between seasons of The Morning Show, Crudup starred in the streaming series Hello Tomorrow! (2023) as a slick salesman who markets time-shares on the Moon. Crudup told The New York Times that the character reminded him of his father, who died in 2005. In 2023 Crudup married Watts, with whom he had been linked since 2017.