Stephen Root (born November 17, 1951) is an American actor and voice actor. Known for his extensive character actor roles in film and television, he gained attention for his roles as Jimmy James on the NBC sitcom NewsRadio (1995–1999), as… Stephen Root (born November 17, 1951) is an American actor and voice actor. Known for his extensive character actor roles in film and television, he gained attention for his roles as Jimmy James on the NBC sitcom NewsRadio (1995–1999), as Milton Waddams in the comedy film Office Space (1999), and voiced Bill Dauterive and Buck Strickland on the animated series King of the Hill (1997–2010, 2025–present).
Root has appeared in numerous Coen brothers films including O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), The Ladykillers (2004), No Country for Old Men (2007), The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), and The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021). Other notable film roles include Dave (1993), Bicentennial Man (1999), Dodgeball (2004), Idiocracy (2006), Cedar Rapids (2011), Selma (2014), Trumbo (2015), Get Out (2017), and On the Basis of Sex (2018), as well as his voice roles in Ice Age (2002) and Finding Nemo (2003).
On television, he played a manipulative handler to a hitman in the HBO dark comedy series Barry (2018–2023), for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2019. He also took supporting roles in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1991), True Blood (2008–2009), Boardwalk Empire (2012–2013), The Man in the High Castle (2016–2019), Perry Mason (2020), and Succession (2021–2023) and Widow's Bay (2026).
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