ACTOR BIO

Dr. Perry Cox is the type of guy you love to hate. If that’s true, why do we love to like him? It has to be the undeniable talent of the guy who plays him on TV.

John C. McGinley’s path to stardom reads like a Hollywood script. While an understudy in New York in the Circle-in-the-Square production of John Patrick Shanley’s Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, he was spotted by director Oliver Stone and soon after was cast in Platoon. This was the first of long list of collaborations between Stone and McGinley that includes Wall Street, Talk Radio, Born on the Fourth of July, Nixon and Any Given Sunday.

John starred opposite Ice Cube in Are We Done Yet? And voiced the main character in Dead Head Fred,” an original PSP (PlayStation) game. Other feature credits—over 60 to date—include Wild Hogs, Identity, The Animal, The Rock, Nothing to Lose, Set It Off, Seven, Office Space, Mother, Wagons East, Surviving the Game, On Deadly Ground, Point Break, Highlander II, A Midnight Clear and Fat Man and Little Boy.

His independent film credits include director Eriq La Salle’s Crazy as Hell and director Scott Silver’s Johns. He also worked on Truth or Consequences, N.M., Kiefer Sutherland’s feature directorial debut, and on Colin Fitz, a film he co-produced. John starred in director D.B. Sweeney’s, Two Tickets to Paradise, for which he was awarded Method Fest’s Festival Director’s Award. A partner at John Entertainment Inc., an independent film production company, he served double duty as actor and producer for the romantic comedy Watch It!, with Peter Gallagher and Lili Taylor.

In television, John received raves for his starring role in Dean Koontz’s 1997 suspense drama, Intensity. He also executive-produced and starred opposite John Cusack in HBO Pictures’ western, The Jack Bull, and appeared in HBO NYC’s The Pentagon Wars. In 2005, he hosted the highly-rated Unforgettable Moments in Television Entertainment for NBC.

John’s background is rooted in theater. He was featured on Broadway in Requiem for a Heavyweight and off-Broadway in The Ballad of Soapy Smith and the original cast production of Eric Bogosian’s Talk Radio, both at the renowned Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival.

John recently appeared in a series of high-profile commercials for Miller Lite as the Commissioner of the More Taste League, a TV, radio and print campaign for football season.

As the father of Max, his son with Down syndrome, John is committed to building awareness and acceptance of people with Down syndrome. He is serving his fifth year as the national spokesperson for the National Down Syndrome Society’s annual Buddy Walks, advocacy walks talking place in hundreds of cities across the United States and Canada throughout the fall.

In May 2005, he was honored to deliver the keynote address at the commencement ceremony for the University of California San Francisco’s (UCSF) School of Medicine, one of the top medical schools in the nation.

John is the author of The Untalkative Bunny: How to Be Heard Without Saying a Word, an exploration of “active listening” and a guide to nonverbal communication. He resides in Los Angeles and enjoys stand-up paddle surfing, weightlifting and golf. Married to Nichole Kessler in 2007, they have a daughter, Billie Grace.