Reid Scott

Born Reid Scott Weiner in Albany, he spent the 2000s in the usual grind of guest spots and short-lived series before My Boys gave him four seasons as Brendan Dorff. Then came Veep, and Dan Egan, and a decade of people quoting him at parties.

Dan is a specific comic invention and Scott plays him with no protective irony at all. The character is pure naked ambition with a good haircut, a man who flatters upward and abuses downward within the same sentence, and the reason it is funny rather than merely unpleasant is that Scott lets you see the panic underneath. He never asks the audience to like Dan. He just makes the desperation legible, which is a harder note to hold across seven seasons than it looks.

Since then he has worked the polished-professional lane hard. Gordon Ford in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is a late-night host whose charm is a business asset. Dr. Dan Lewis in the three Venom films is the straight man in a franchise about a talking parasite, which is thankless and he does it well. He turns up in Late Night, Home Again, Black and Blue and The Idea of You, joined Law & Order as Detective Vincent Riley in 2024, and has built a quiet second life in animation as Pa Kent in My Adventures with Superman and Commissioner Gordon in Merry Little Batman.