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Accomplished stage and film actor Jason Butler Harner grew up in Virginia and attended secondary school at Alexandria's T.C. Williams High. Though reportedly a heavy-set adolescent, Harner found his niche and his passion in school plays and soon lost whatever awkwardness had initially threatened to hamper him. He also set his focus on the graduate program in drama at New York University, where he triumphed. Within several years, Harner began racking up dozens of prestigious and covetable theatrical assignments, culminating with a 2004 run opposite Sally Field in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie at Lincoln Center. Cinematically, Harner moved into film near the end of the 2000s, beginning on an uncharacteristic note with a small role in the Nicolas Cage-headlined, Lee Tamahori-directed sci-fi thriller Next. Harner then accepted a supporting turn opposite Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich in Clint Eastwood's period thriller Changeling (2008). He followed that up with an appearance in the 2009 remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. He enjoyed a major part in 2011's Letters From the Big Man, and appeared alongside a number of high-powered actors in the crime film Kill the Irishman.