Jeff Applegate

Jeffrey James Applegate—yeah, that guy—actually grew up smack in the middle of a Christmas tree farm in Cranbury, NJ. Can you imagine? Not exactly Hollywood, but it’s got its own charm. Before he ever got to mug for the camera, he was stomping around the stage, racking up years (and air miles) on worldwide tours with big-name productions. Think West Side Story, Mamma Mia!, Cheers: Live on Stage—if you’ve seen a musical with a cult following in the last decade, odds are he’s belted a tune or two in it. But let’s be honest, the screen’s where most folks know him now. He really turned heads playing undercover CIA agent Michael Johnson in DeNiro’s The Good Shepherd—no pressure or anything, just acting opposite some legends. After that, roles started coming in all shapes and sizes: the romantic lead in Searching for Sylvie (yep, he’s got the smolder down), wine snob Todd Harris in CBS’s Elementary (bet he knows his Merlot from his Malbec now), and even a gruff German hockey coach, Kruger, in the indie flick Odd Man Rush. He’s popped up as an American GI in HBO’s Random Acts of Flyness, and played his fair share of reporters and talking heads in everything from Ava DuVernay’s When They See Us to An Englishman in New York and Veronika Decides to Die. Basically, if you’ve flicked through TV or indie film in the last few years, Applegate’s probably crossed your path—always switching it up, always keeping it interesting. Guy never phones it in.