Greg Grunberg Biography

Gregory Phillip "Greg" Grunberg (born July 11, 1966) is an American television and film actor. He is best known for starring as Matt Parkman in the NBC television series Heroes and "Snap" Wexley in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He has often appeared in works produced and directed by childhood friend J. J. Abrams. He is a recurring cast member in the first 2 seasons of the Showtime American television drama series Masters of Sex.

Early life

Grunberg was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Sandy (ne Klein) and Gerry Grunberg, and had a Jewish upbringing. He attended University High School in West Los Angeles.

Career

Grunberg got his first credited role in Matt Stone and Trey Parker's 1998 film Baseketball. From 1998-2002 he appeared as Sean Blumberg on Felicity. He appeared from 2001-06 as Eric Weiss on Alias. He left that series as a regular to star on the NBC sitcom, Grand Union. Since 2003, Abrams had planned a series called The Catch about a bounty hunter, starring Grunberg in the lead role. Suggested for both the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons, the series was never produced; however, a pilot episode was shot.

Abrams also cast Grunberg in a brief role as the pilot for the 2004 series Lost. Grunberg returned for the first-season finale, but his scenes were cut for time, and were instead included on the season 1 DVD set. He also appeared in a small role in Mission: Impossible III, which Abrams directed.

Grunberg had a major role in the NBC TV show Heroes. He plays police officer Matt Parkman, who has the power of telepathy. Grunberg guest-starred on House. He was offered a part in Star Trek, which Abrams directed, but was unable to take it because of a conflict with another project he was working on (although he provided the voice for Kirk's stepfather in the opening sequence). Grunberg voices FBI agent Ethan Thomas in the video game Condemned: Criminal Origins.

Outside of acting, Grunberg is known as one of the creators of the Yowza!! Android and iPhone application, a GPS-aware coupon-referring program.

He also voices Ant-Man in the animated series The Super Hero Squad Show. Grunberg was featured on the May/June 2009 cover of Making Music magazine. On May 17, 2010, Grunberg announced that he would be joining the cast of Love Bites.

He took up a minor role in the 2011 neo-noir detective videogame L.A. Noire, in which he provided both voice and facial motion capture as murder suspect Hugo Moller. On November 7, 2011, he appeared as a guest star on an episode of the TV series Hawaii Five-0 with former Heroes co-star Masi Oka. He also appeared as a special guest star on the March 14, 2012 episode of the TV series Psych.

In 2013 Grunberg appeared in one episode during the first season of the TV series Masters of Sex as the character Gene Moretti, a rich business man. The part was expanded in 2014 to 4 episodes during the second season.

In February 2016, it was revealed that Grunberg will co-host a late night talk show with Kevin Smith titled Geeking Out on AMC.

Personal life

In 1992, Grunberg married Elizabeth Dawn Wershow. They have three children: Jake, Ben, and Sam. Jake has epilepsy, which has inspired Grunberg to take an active role in raising awareness of the neurological disorder and raising funds for research.

He often organizes charity efforts to raise funds for the Pediatric Epilepsy Project in Los Angeles. In the past, this has included events such as an auction of guitars handpainted by celebrities such as Donald Trump, Pink and Grunberg's Alias co-stars Jennifer Garner and Michael Vartan as well as concerts by the Band From TV that includes Grunberg and Hugh Laurie and an online auction of cartoons drawn of his Heroes costars.

In March 2007, Greg served as the chair of the first National Walk for Epilepsy, presented by the Epilepsy Foundation.

In 2009, Grunberg launched Talk About It, a website dedicated to epilepsy education and awareness, featuring many of Greg's co-stars and celebrity friends, including Garner, Larter, Pasdar, Ramamurthy, Ventimiglia, Panettiere, as well as Zachary Quinto, Chris Pine, Dr. Drew Pinsky, Ron Rifkin, and John Mayer. The site features Grunberg interviewing top epilepsy experts on the need to talk more about epilepsy, and includes a section for people all over the world to talk about it.

Grunberg was a participant in the first-ever national television advertising campaign supporting donations to Jewish federations. The program featured "film and television personalities celebrating their Jewish heritage and promoting charitable giving to the Jewish community" and included Marlee Matlin, Joshua Malina, Kevin Weisman, and Jonathan Silverman.

He made a tongue-in-cheek promotional video for Temple Judea Religious School lambasting boring Hebrew Religious schools.

Grunberg currently is one of the hosts of Social Tron Live, a Twitch channel, in a segment called Greg Grunberg live where he plays video games with fellow celebrities, comedians, and popular Twitch streamers.

Filmography and television credits

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1993	Witchcraft V: Dance with the Devil	Bartender (uncredited)	Film
1996	The Pallbearer	Bobby (uncredited)	Film
1997	Picture Perfect	Date #1 (uncredited)	Film
1998	BASEketball	Wilke	Film
1998	Senseless	Steve	Film
1998	Diagnosis: Murder	Brad Carver	TV series
1998-2002	Felicity	Sean Blumberg	Recurring (Season 1) Main Cast (Season 2-4): 66 episodes
2000	Hollow Man	Carter Abbey	Film
2001	NYPD Blue	Joey Schulman	Season 8, episodes 18,19,20
2001-2006	Alias	Eric Weiss	TV series
2002	Austin Powers in Goldmember	Shirtless Fan T	Film
2003	Malibu's Most Wanted	Brett	Film
2004	The Dead Zone	Frankie Cantrell	TV series
2004	The Ladykillers	TV commercial director	Film
2004	Connie and Carla	Studio tour guide	Film
2004, 2010	Lost	Seth Norris (pilot)	TV series
2005	Condemned: Criminal Origins	Ethan Thomas	Video game
2006	Monk	Jack Leverett	Episode: "Mr. Monk and the Actor"
2006	The Jake Effect	Nick Case	TV series
2006	The Darkroom	Bob	Film
2006	Mission: Impossible III	Kevin	Film
2006	House	Ronald Neuberger	TV series
2006-2010	Heroes	Matt Parkman	TV series
2007	TimeShift	Commander Mason Cooke	Video game
2008-2009	Head Case	Himself	TV series
2009	Star Trek	James T. Kirk's stepfather/Uncle Frank	Brad William Henke originally played Uncle Frank until his scenes were cut for time and Grunberg then redubbed his lines via voice only
2009	The Super Hero Squad Show	Ant-Man	Voice only
2010	Halo: Reach	Trooper 2	Video game
2010	Kill Speed	Chief of Police	Film
2010	Group Sex	Jerry	Film
2011	Love Bites	Judd Rousher	TV series
2011	L.A. Noire	Hugo Moller	Video game
2011	ISSUES	The Dark Kodiak	Television/webseries
2011	Hawaii Five-0	Agent Jeff Morrison	Guest on season 2, episode 8
2012	Psych	Jay	Guest on season 6, episode 12
2012-2013	The Client List	Dale	Recurring
2012	Baby Daddy	Ray Wheeler	TV series
2013	End of the World	Owen Stokes	TV movie
2013	Big Ass Spider!	Alex	Film
2013-2014	Masters of Sex	Gene Moretti	TV series
2014	Let's Kill Ward's Wife	Bruce	Film
2015	The Haunting of...Greg Grunberg	Himself	Documentary TV series Season 5, episode 1
2015	Criminal Minds	Chris Callahan	TV series, 2 episodes
2015	Heroes Reborn	Matt Parkman	TV series/miniseries
2015	Underdog Kids	Announcer	Film
2015	Tales of Halloween	Alex Mathis	Film
2015	Star Wars: The Force Awakens	Temmin "Snap" Wexley	Film
2016	Life in Pieces	Mikey	Episode: "Soccer Gigi TV Mikey" (s1 ep15)
2016	Geeking Out	Himself	Co-Host; TV series
2016	Star Trek Beyond	Officer of Starbase Yorktown	Film