D.W. Moffett

It's not often that a Stanford grad with a degree in International Relations opts to pursue a performing career. But while Moffett claims he enrolled in his first acting class solely to meet girls, he found a vocation instead. After studying his craft at David Mamet's Chicago-based St. Nicholas Theater, this handsome character player embarked on a stage career, cofounding the avant-garde troupe Remains Theatre Ensemble with the likes of CSI's William Petersen and Monk's Ted Levine. In 1985, he took a risk by playing two gay characters with AIDS long before that kind of role became fashionable for straight actors. In Larry Kramer's groundbreaking off-Broadway drama The Normal Heart, Moffett earned raves as a closeted journalist involved with a gay activist (played by Brad Davis, who succumbed to the virus in 1991). Moffett was equally affecting in his small-screen debut, An Early Frost, the first-ever TV-movie to tackle AIDS, as a man who may have unwittingly infected his partner. For the next two decades, Moffett remained gainfully, if at times anonymously, employed, segueing seamlessly from stage (he appeared on Broadway in Contact and at London's Old Vic opposite Kevin Spacey in The Philadelphia Story) to TV (recurring roles on Crossing Jordan and Nip/Tuck) to film (he was particularly memorable as a sleazy, virgin-coveting lawyer in Stealing Beauty and shared in a SAG Award for best ensemble for Traffic). In 2007, he snagged a rare leading role as a newlywed in a rocky marriage in the drama series Hidden Palms.