Tate Buckley Donovan (born September 25, 1963) is an
American film and
television actor and
director. He is best known for his role as
Jimmy Cooper in the American teen drama television series
The O.C. He has also been the voice of the
Hercules, a title character from the
1997 film of the same name, the
animated television series, and in the video game
Kingdom Hearts II (in the first
Kingdom Hearts game, he was voiced by actor
Sean Astin).
Biography
Early life
Donovan, the youngest of seven children, was born in
New York City, New York,
the son of Eileen (
née McAllister) and J. Timothy Donovan, who was a surgeon.
[Tate Donovan Biography (1963-)][Tate Donovan Biography - Yahoo! Movies] He attended a
public high school in
Tenafly New Jersey and has been appearing on television since his teens. He attended the
University of Southern California in
Los Angeles, where he met his now long-time friends
Grant Heslov and
George Clooney. He is of Irish heritage.
Career
Donovan played the role of Joshua, the boyfriend of Jennifer Aniston's character,
Rachel Green, in a few episodes of season 4 of the sitcom
Friends. He played the priest son of a large Irish Catholic family in the short-lived NBC drama
Trinity (1998). More recently he has appeared as a guest star in several series such as
The Guardian (2001),
Mister Sterling (2003),
Exposed (2003), and in the
The O.C. (2003), where he appeared as
Jimmy Cooper. He starred on stage with
Glenn Fitzgerald in
Kenneth Lonergan's
Lobby Hero and with
Amy Ryan in the L.A. production of
Rabbit Hole. On Broadway, Donovan appeared in the revivial of "Picnic" in 1994; he also appeared opposite actress Dame Judy Dench in "Amy's View" (1999), and in 1994, as Alan Seymour in "Picnic." Off Broadway, Donovan appeared in the 2001 production of Kenneth Lonergan's "Lobby Hero."
