Please Rewind Talent Wall

Liev Schreiber

Liev Schreiber has built a career around authority, unease and a voice that can make almost any story feel consequential. Born in San Francisco on October 4, 1967, the American actor initially wanted to be a screenwriter before settling on acting. His training included Hampshire College, the Yale School of Drama and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, preparing him for a career that would move freely between stage, film, television and voice work. After early appearances in independent films including Walking and Talking and The Daytrippers, Schreiber found a wider audience as Cotton Weary in the Scream trilogy. By Scream 3, covered by Please Rewind, Cotton has turned his connection to the Woodsboro murders into television fame. Schreiber plays that self-regard with just enough nervous energy to keep the character tethered to the series’ underlying danger. His film work has rarely followed one narrow track. He portrayed Orson Welles in RKO 281, appeared in Hamlet, The Manchurian Candidate and Defiance, and took on Victor Creed in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. In Spotlight, he played Boston Globe editor Martin Baron as part of the film’s Screen Actors Guild Award-winning ensemble. His voice work has been similarly extensive, ranging from documentary narration to animated roles in Isle of Dogs and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The stage has remained central to Schreiber’s career. His performances have included Shakespearean roles in Hamlet, Henry V and Macbeth, along with Broadway productions of Glengarry Glen Ross, Talk Radio, A View from the Bridge, Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Doubt. He won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for Glengarry Glen Ross. Television gave him one of his longest-running roles in Ray Donovan. Schreiber starred as the Hollywood fixer for seven seasons, while also working as a writer, director and producer on the series. That combination reflects the shape of his career: not simply an actor moving between formats, but a filmmaker and writer repeatedly finding new ways into the work.