Oliver James Platt was born on January 12, 1960 in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. He is an American film and television actor.

A hulking character actor who brings new meaning to the concept of versatility, Oliver Platt has appeared in a dizzying array of films that make him instantly recognizable but not instantly placeable to the average filmgoer. Since making his screen debut as an oily Wall Street drone in Mike Nichols' Working Girl (1988), Platt has lent his talents to almost every conceivable genre, including period dramas, political comedies, children's films, and campy horror movies.

Following his screen debut in Working Girl, Platt began finding steady work in such films as Married to the Mob (1988), Postcards from the Edge (1990), Beethoven (1992) - which featured him and future collaborator Stanley Tucci as puppy thieves - and Benny and Joon (1993). He also proved himself adept at cheesy period drama in The Three Musketeers (1993), which cast him as Porthos, and at all-out comedy, as demonstrated by his turn as a struggling comic in Funny Bones (1995). Rarely cast as a leading man, Platt has always been visible in substantial supporting roles, equally comfortable at portraying nice guys, bad guys, and just flat out weird guys alike. As Ashley Judd's suitor in Simon Birch (1998), he was the straight man, while in The Impostors (1998), his second collaboration with Tucci (two years earlier he served as associate producer for the latter's Big Night), he again displayed his capacity for broad physical comedy as a struggling actor who finds himself a stowaway on an ocean liner. In Dangerous Beauty (1998), Platt was able to exercise his nasty side as a bitter nobleman-turned-religious zealot in 16th-century Venice; that same year, his capacity for exasperated quirkiness was displayed in Bulworth, which cast him as Warren Beatty's put-upon, coke-snorting campaign manager.

1999 proved to be a somewhat disappointing year for Platt, as two of his films, Three to Tango (which featured him as a gay architect) and the schlock-horror Lake Placid, which cast him as an idiosyncratic mythology expert, were both critical and commercial flops. A third film that year, Bicentennial Man -- in which Platt played the scientist who turns the titular robot (Robin Williams) into a man -- fared somewhat better. The following year, Platt's comic abilities were again on display in Gun Shy, in which he hammed it up as a bottom-rung mafioso with an overblown ego.

Credits by Rebecca Flint, All Movie Guide

Filmography

• Frost/Nixon (2008)
• Who Is Killing the Great Chefs? (2008)
• Martian Child (2007)
• "The Bronx Is Burning" (8 episodes, 2007)
• "Queens Supreme" (13 episodes, 2003-2007)
• The Ten (2007)
• The Thick of It (2007)
• "Huff" (24 episodes, 2004-2006)
• "The West Wing" (9 episodes, 2001-2005)
• Casanova (2005)
• The Ice Harvest (2005)
• Loverboy (2005)
• Kinsey (2004)
• Strip Search (2004)
• Hope Springs (2003)
• Pieces of April (2003)
• Ash Wednesday (2002)
• ZigZag (2002)
• Liberty Stands Still (2002)
• SSX Tricky (2001)
• Don't Say a Word (2001)
• "Deadline" (13 episodes, 2000-2001)
• Ready to Rumble (2000)
• Gun Shy (2000)
• Bicentennial Man (1999)
• Three to Tango (1999)
• Lake Placid (1999)
• Cinderelmo (1999)
• Simon Birch (1998)
• Doctor Dolittle (1998)
• The Impostors (1998)
• Bulworth (1998)
• Dangerous Beauty (1998)
• A Time to Kill (1996)
• Executive Decision (1996)
• The Infiltrator (1995)
• Tall Tale (1995)
• Funny Bones (1995)
• The Three Musketeers (1993)
• Benny & Joon (1993)
• Indecent Proposal (1993)
• The Temp (1993)
• Tall Tail (1993)
• Diggstown (1992)
• Beethoven (1992)
• Postcards from the Edge (1990)
• Flatliners (1990)
• "Wiseguy" (1 episode, 1990)
• Crusoe (1989)
• Working Girl (1988)
• "Tattingers" (1 episode, 1988)
• Married to the Mob (1988)
• "Miami Vice" (1 episode, 1988)
• "The Equalizer" (1 episode, 1987)