Michael Rapaport

Not to be confused with the German mathematician Michael Rapoport.

Michael Rapaport
200px Rapaport (left) in 2013
Born	Michael David Rapaport (1970-03-20) March 20, 1970 Manhattan, New York, United States
Residence	Brooklyn, New York, United States
Occupation	Actor, comedian, director
Years active	1990–present
Television	The 2015 Guest of the year on The Fighter and the kid podcast.
Spouse(s)	Nichole Beattie (m. 2000)
Children	2

Michael David Rapaport (born March 20, 1970) is a Jewish-American actor, director, comedian, and far-left activist. He has acted in more than forty films since the early 1990s. His best known roles on television are Boston Public, Prison Break, Friends, The War at Home, and Justified.

Early life

Rapaport was born in Manhattan, New York City, the son of June Brody, a New York radio personality, and David Rapaport, a radio executive noted for bringing the All-Disco format to New York radio. His family is Jewish (from Poland and Russia). As a teenager, he idolized fellow New York actors Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken. He was expelled from high school and moved to Los Angeles, California to try stand-up comedy.

Career

Rapaport has appeared in both dramatic and comedic roles on film and television. His movie roles include starring alongside Eddie Murphy in Metro, as a wisecracking marine biologist in Deep Blue Sea, and as a naive college student whose loneliness drives him to become a racist skinhead in Higher Learning. Many credit his breakout role with the independent film Zebrahead. His other best known film role was in True Romance as Dick Ritchie. A lesser known film, he has memorable monologue in "Beautiful Girls" , referencing the same. Rapaport costarred in the Fox sitcom The War at Home, in which he played an "average Joe" type dealing with the everyday challenges of family life. The sitcom debuted in September 2005, and was cancelled in May 2007.

Rapaport previously starred in the TV drama Boston Public. He voiced Troy Bradshaw from August 2006's Saints Row on Xbox 360, the sequel Saints Row 2 and Joey Leone in the popular video game Grand Theft Auto III. Rapaport had a recurring guest-starring role on several episodes of Friends in 1999 as Phoebe's (Lisa Kudrow) police officer boyfriend, Gary. Coincidentally, Anita Barone, who plays Michael's on-screen wife, Vicky Gold in The War at Home, also appeared in Friends. She played Ross' ex-wife Carol for one episode, before Jane Sibbett was re-cast in the role.

He had a recurring role in My Name is Earl as Frank, a convict Earl reunites with in prison. His character was the reason for many of the things in Earl's life, such as indirectly giving Earl his trailer and El Camino after a botched robbery with his partner, Paco. He played one of the main characters in the season four of Prison Break as Homeland Security Agent Don Self.

In October 2008, Rapaport announced that he was directing a documentary about legendary hip hop act, A Tribe Called Quest. The film Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest was released in 2011 and received mostly positive reviews.

On November 10, 2008, TV Guide reported that Rapaport is developing a series based on the work of social workers for CBS.

Rapaport also provides the voice of "Squirt" on The Hub's Pound Puppies series, which premiered on October 10, 2010.

Rapaport guest starred in the fifth season of the FX series Justified as villain Daryl Crowe Jr, kingpin of the Crowe family.

On February 12, 2010, Rapaport participated in the NBA All-Star Weekend's Celebrity Game and won the MVP for the game for his defense on football player Terrell Owens, the MVP of the last two Celebrity Games, despite scoring just 4 points and having 1 rebound.

On April 17, 2014, an ESPN 30 for 30 film he directed premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival sponsored by AT&T. The film was about the 1970s championship-winning New York Knicks led by Earl Monroe, Walt Frazier, and Willis Reed. Players that made it to the premiere consisted of: Earl Monroe, Walt Frazier, Phil Jackson, Cazzie Russell, and Dick Barnett. Bill Bradley was not able to come because of a hip replacement surgery.

Rapport was also awarded the 2015 Guest of the Year on The Fighter and the kid podcast.

Rapaport is an occasional guest on the Howard Stern Show on Sirius Satellite Radio, especially when he participates in the staff's fantasy football pool. Stern enjoys talking with Rapaport about his passion for the sport. By coincidence, Rapaport's father David was an executive on the same radio station where Stern spent many years in New York radio, 92.3 K-Rock, WXRK (now WBMP (FM), although the elder Rapaport was at the station when it was called WKTU, several years before Stern's arrival.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1992	Zebrahead	Zack
1993	Point of No Return	Big Stan
1993	Poetic Justice	Dockworker
1993	Money for Nothing	Kenny Kozlowski
1993	True Romance	Dick Ritchie
1994	The Scout	Tommy Lacy
1994	Hand Gun	Lenny
1994	The Foot Shooting Party		Short film (also starring Leonardo DiCaprio)
1995	Higher Learning	Remy
1995	The Basketball Diaries	Skinhead
1995	Kiss of Death	Ronnie Gannon
1995	Mighty Aphrodite	Kevin
1996	Beautiful Girls	Paul Kirkwood
1996	The Pallbearer	Brad Schorr
1997	Metro	Kevin McCall
1997	Cop Land	Murray Babitch
1997	A Brother's Kiss	Stingy
1997	Kicked in the Head	Stretch
1998	Palmetto	Donnelly
1998	Illtown	Dante
1998	Some Girl	Neal
1998	The Naked Man	Dr. Edward Blis, Jr.
1999	Deep Blue Sea	Tom Scoggins
1999	Kiss Toledo Goodbye	Kevin Gower
2000	Next Friday	Mailman with Tax Notice
2000	Small Time Crooks	Denny
2000	The 6th Day	Hank Morgan
2000	Men of Honor	GM1 Snowhill
2000	Bamboozled	Thomas Dunwitty
2000	Chain of Fools	Hitman
2000	King of the Jungle	Francis
2000	Lucky Numbers	Dale
2001	Dr. Dolittle 2	Joey the Raccoon	Voice
2002	Paper Soldiers	Mike E.
2002	Triggermen	Tommy O'Brian
2002	Comic Book Villains	Norman Link
2002	29 Palms	The Cop
2003	A Good Night to Die	August
2003	This Girl's Life	Terry the Car salesman
2004	America Brown	Daniel Brown
2004	Scrambled Eggs	Drama Teacher
2005	TOM 51
2005	Hitch	Ben
2006	It Aint Easy
2006	Live Free or Die	Lt. Putney
2006	Special	Les Franken
2006	Push	Tommy G
2006	Grilled	Bobby
2007	Fugly	Jack
2008	Assassination of a High School President	Coach Z
2009	Tom Cool
2009	Big Fan	Philadelphia Phil
2009	A Day in the Life	Detective Grant
2011	Inside Out	Jack Small
2011	Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest	Himself	Documentary; also director and producer
2011	The Saints of Mount Christopher
2012	Should've Been Romeo	Danny
2012	The Baytown Outlaws	Lucky
2012	Kiss of the Damned	Ben
2013	The Heat	Jason Mullins
2013	Once Upon a Time in Queens	Bobby DiBianco
2014	My Man Is a Loser	Marty
2015	Little Boy	James Busbee
2015	A Standup Guy		Post-production
2015	Untitled Vanessa Del Rio Film	Mickey	Pre-production
2016	The Bleeder		Filming

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1990	China Beach	Kravits	1 episode
1992	Murphy Brown	Robbie	1 episode
1992	Middle Ages	Jimmy	2 episodes
1993	Fresh Prince of Bel Air	Mike	1 episode
1993	NYPD Blue	Jaime Dileo	1 episode
1997	Subway Stories	Jake	TV Movie
1998	E.R.	Paul Canterna	1 episode
1998	Rude Awakening	Johnny	1 episode
1998	Rescuers: Stories of Courage: Two Families	Szarany	TV Movie
1999	Friends	Gary	4 episodes
2001–04	Boston Public	Danny Hanson	57 episodes (main cast, seasons 2-4)
2001	Mr. Life		TV Movie
2001	Night Visions	Harlow Winton	1 episode
2003	Chappelle's Show	Popcopy Employee	1 episode
2006	MadTV	Abraham Lincoln	1 episode
2004	The Practice	Gigi Coley	Episodes: "Comings and Goings", "New Hoods on the Block"
2005–07	The War at Home	Dave Gold	44 episodes (main cast)
2006	Thugaboo: Sneaker Madness	DJ	TV Movie; voice
2007–08	My Name Is Earl	Frank Stump	6 episodes (recurring cast)
2008–09	Prison Break	Don Self	22 episodes
2009–10	Accidentally on Purpose	Sully	2 episodes
2010	Royal Pains	Stanley	1 episode
2010	The Line	Steve Waxman	TV Movie
2010–13	Pound Puppies	Squirt	64 episodes
2012	40	8	TV Movie
2012	Cops Uncuffed	Officer Joseph Tata	TV Movie
2012–13	The Mob Doctor	Paul Moretti	7 episodes (recurring cast)
2014	Justified	Daryl Crowe Jr.	13 episodes (recurring cast)
2014	Raising Hope	Michael	1 episode
2015	Black-ish	Jay Simmons	1 episode
2015	Louie	Lenny	1 episode
2015	Public Morals	Charlie Bullman	10 episodes (main cast)
2015	The Big Bang Theory	Kenny	2 episodes

Video game

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2001	Grand Theft Auto III	Joey Leone	Voice
2006	Saints Row	Troy Bradshaw	Voice
2006	Scarface: The World Is Yours	Drug Dealer / Henchman	Voice
2008	Saints Row 2	Troy Bradshaw	Voice

Music video appearances

• Frank Zappa: Civilization, Phaze III (1994) - Act Two, playing Moon Zappa's black-acting "boyfriend" in skits.
• Talib Kweli: Cameo in "Waiting for the DJ" (2002)
• High & Mighty: The Highlite Zone - "How to Rob an Actor" (2003)
• Ludacris' music video for the song "Runaway Love"; he portrayed the victimizer of "Lisa"—the first child depicted in the song. (2006)
• Jay-Z "The City is Mine"
• H₂O's "What Happened?"
• Jaylib "McNasty Filth"
• Masta Ace "A Long Hot Summer"; portrays Ace's prison cell mate in a number of skits.

External links

• Michael Rapaport at The Tribeca Film Festival - VIDEO INTERVIEW - Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest
• Michael Rapaport at the Internet Movie Database
• Michael Rapaport on Twitter