Growing up, he was "embarrassed" by the idea of acting, but enjoyed art and drawing. His third great-grandfather, David Olyphant, and great-great-grandfather, Robert Morrison Olyphant, were both prominent businessmen. David Olyphant, was born in Scotland and served as director-general of the Southern hospitals during the American Revolutionary War. Another paternal fourth great-grandfather, Dr. The surname Olyphant is of Scottish origin. His paternal fourth great-grandfather was family patriarch Cornelius Vanderbilt his third great-grandfather was William Henry Vanderbilt, who doubled the family's railroad fortune his great-grandmother was socialite Emily Vanderbilt Sloane and his great-uncle was music producer John Hammond.
Olyphant is a descendant of the Vanderbilt family of New York. He is of English, German, Scottish, Dutch, Irish, and one eighth Russian-Jewish ancestry. His parents divorced when Olyphant was a teenager both remarried. He has an older brother, Andrew, and a younger brother, Matthew. His parents are Katherine ( née Gideon) and John Vernon Bevan Olyphant, who worked as vice president of production at Gallo Winery. Olyphant was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, but moved to Modesto, California, at the age of two.
In 2020, he played himself in a brief cameo, parodying his Justified character, in the NBC award-winning show The Good Place.
He also starred in the Netflix comedy series Santa Clarita Diet (2017–2019) and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as James Stacy (2019). Olyphant had guest appearances in numerous television sitcoms including The Office (2010), The Mindy Project (2013), and The Grinder (2015–2016), for which he won a Critics' Choice Award. Marshal Raylan Givens in FX's modern-day Kentucky southern gothic Justified (2010–2015), for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 2011. Olyphant was a recurring guest star in season two of the FX legal thriller Damages (2009).Īmong Olyphant's best-known performances has been as Deputy U.S.
He had starring roles in such films as Catch and Release (2006), Hitman (2007), A Perfect Getaway (2009), and The Crazies (2010), and he played the main antagonist, Thomas Gabriel, in Live Free or Die Hard (2007).
He came to the attention of a wider audience with his portrayal of Sheriff Seth Bullock in HBO's western Deadwood (2004–2006), later reprising the role in Deadwood: The Movie (2019). He then branched out to film in the early years of his career, he was often cast in supporting villainous roles, most notably in Scream 2 (1997), Go (1999), A Man Apart (2003), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), and The Girl Next Door (2004). He made his acting debut in an off-Broadway theater in 1995, in The Monogamist, and won the Theatre World Award for his performance, and then originated David Sedaris' The Santaland Diaries in 1996. Timothy David Olyphant ( / ˈ ɒ l ɪ f ən t/ OL-ih-fənt born May 20, 1968) is an American actor.