David Hyde Pierce, American actor and activist
David Hyde Pierce (born April 3, 1959) is an American actor, comedian and theatre director. Pierce starred as psychiatrist Dr. Niles Crane on the NBC sitcom Frasier from 1993 to 2004, receiving four Primetime Emmy Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award for the role. Pierce also received the 2007 Tony Award for playing Lieutenant Frank Cioffi in the musical Curtains. Pierce is also widely known for playing Frank Prady in eight episodes of the television legal drama The Good Wife, and Henry Newman in the hit comedy film Wet Hot American Summer and its subsequent television spin-offs.
Pierce has played supporting roles in many films, including Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King (1991), Nora Ephron's Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Mike Nichols' Wolf (1994), and Oliver Stone's Nixon (1995). He has also starred in the cult comedy Down with Love (2003), and the dark comedy film The Perfect Host (2010). His voice roles include Disney Pixar's A Bug's Life (1998), Osmosis Jones (2001), and Treasure Planet (2002).
Besides his performance in Curtains, Pierce also had Broadway roles as Sir Robin in Monty Python's Spamalot, Vanya in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike and Horace Vandergelder in the 2017 revival of Hello, Dolly!; the latter two of which Pierce was nominated for a Tony Award. In 2015, he directed the Broadway musical It Shoulda Been You.