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Michael Rapaport (born March 20 1970 in New York City, New York) is an American actor and a comedian and has acted in over 20 films in the early 1990s.

Biography

Rapaport idolized other New Yorkers Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken as a teenager. He was expelled from high school and moved to Los Angeles to try stand-up comedy.

Rapaport has been in many independent movies such as Kicked in the Head and Zebrahead.

He has appeared in both dramatic and comedic roles in film and television. His movie roles include starring alongside Eddie Murphy in Metro, as a wisecracking marine biologist in Deep Blue Sea, and as a naïve college student whose loneliness drives him to become a racist skinhead in Higher Learning. Many credit his breakout role with the independent film Zebrahead. His other well known film roll was in True Romance as Dick Ritchie.

Rapaport currently stars in the Fox sitcom The War at Home, in which he plays an "average Joe" type dealing with the everyday challenges of family life. The sitcom debuted in September 2005 on Sunday nights.

He was in the New York tabloids in mid-2005 as the landlord who evicted actress Natasha Lyonne from her apartment (in one of the residential buildings he owns), which he described as, among other things, "filthy". Rapaport wrote an account of the matter in May 2005's issue of Jane Magazine.

Michael Rapaport role on Boston Public as: Danny Hanson was some kind of humanities teacher brought in Season 2. Danny came from a working-class Irish-Catholic home and had a populist political philosophy and a certain ambivalence about religion because he was sexually molested by his priest. He also had a conservative side when it came to race and didn't like the sacred cow status some racial issues were given. He was the one who brought the "n word" debate to Winslow. Marla, in Season 2, rightly suggested his main flaw wasn't being controversial, but raising questions that he didn't have any helpful solutions too. The two fought a lot, including one fist fight, but also admitted they had a lot in common.

Like Marla his hotheaded attitude got him into trouble in his professional and personal life; to name a few examples, when he walked in on his fiancé having sex with another man, he threw a phone at the man, and later started the class project on the "N-word." He also sent a letter home to a student's parents advising she was overweight. He also helped students with various issues including a kid who had (small world) been molested by the same priest who hurt him, and a 12 year old genius. Danny had a special relationship with overachieving Debbie in Season 2, which came under scrutiny but turned out to be completely a healthy teacher-student thing.

In the series' third season, Danny began dating Claire Ellison; they eventually married and gained custody of Allison, his 5 year old niece while Joanie, his sister, was in rehabilitation for drug addiction. By Season 4, the marriage was sort of on the rocks, and Joanie came back for Allison (which is rather legally dubious if they had legally adopted her - which would mean Joanie surrendered parental rights.) The series left Danny and Claire willing to work on their marriage while Alison went to live with her mom.

Michael Rapaport also played the role of Joey Leone in the video game Grand Theft Auto 3

Selected filmography

• Hitch (2005)
• Grilled (2005)
• A Good Night To Die (2003)
• Boston Public (2000 - 2004)
• King of the Jungle (2001)
• Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001)
• Men of Honor (2000)
• Bamboozled (2000)
• The 6th Day (2000)
• Next Friday (2000)
• Small Time Crooks (2000)
• Deep Blue Sea (1999)
• "The Naked Man" (1998)
• Cop Land (1997)
• Metro (1997)
• The Pallbearer (1996)
• Beautiful Girls (1996)
• Mighty Aphrodite (1995)
• The Basketball Diaries (1995)
• Kiss of Death (1995)
• Higher Learning (1995)
• The Foot Shooting Party (1994)
• Money for Nothing (1993)
• True Romance (1993)
• Point of No Return (1993)
• Zebrahead (1992)

Musical appearances

High & Mighty: The Highlite Zone - "How to Rob an Actor" (2003)

Trivia

• Is a huge rap fan, and has appeared on skits on Talib Kweli's critically acclaimed album "Quality" and Masta Ace's A Long Hot Summer. In 2003 he was featured on the High & Mighty album The Highlite Zone with his own song "How to Rob an Actor". A music video for the song can be seen on the bonus DVD for the Eastern Conference Records compilation Eastern Conference All-Stars Vol. 4 and he also made an appearance in the music video for Jay-Z's 'City Is Mine'.
• His name is incorrectly spelled as "Michael Rappaport" in the opening credits of Scarface: The World Is Yours.
• Played Popcopy employee in the pilot episode of Chappelle's Show (On DVD, Chappelle and writer Neil Brennan said that they had bumped into Rapaport on the street, and offered him the job).
• In some of his first gigs in his career as an actor, he had very minor roles during the early 90's in popular TV shows. In an April 27, 1992 episode of Murphy Brown he played Robbie. In a September 20, 1993 episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air he played Will's party friend Mike, and in an October 5, 1993 episode of NYPD Blue, playing a drug-addict named Jaime who killed an old woman.
• He was the voice of Joey Leone in the popular video game, Grand Theft Auto III. He would play Troy in Saints Row.
• He is a Toronto Blue Jays fan.
• He is also a big LA Lakers fan, made an appearance on NBA Inside Stuff where he got to visit the Lakers locker room.
• Had a recurring guest-starring role on several episodes of the pop culture phenomenon "Friends" in 1999 as Phoebe's (Lisa Kudrow) police officer boyfriend, Gary.

External link

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