Jesse L. Martin

The Broadway Buzz and the Tom Collins Phenomenon

Jesse Lamont Martin was born in the mountains of Virginia but grew up in the industrial chill of Buffalo. It was there that a drama teacher pushed him to act to overcome a shyness that bordered on the pathological. At the Tisch School of the Arts in New York, he learned that his baritone voice was a precision tool.

In 1996, the premiere of Rent at the Nederlander Theatre shook up the conventions of the modern musical. Martin played Tom Collins and gave the character a humanity that moved away from the era's stereotypes about AIDS. The production won the Pulitzer and four Tony Awards.

The street doesn't forgive mistakes.

Stage success, however, did not guarantee him an easy transition to the screen. For a time, he juggled auditions with waiter jobs at venues where customers hummed the songs he had made popular just weeks before. In 1997, he joined the series 413 Hope St., though the network canceled it after airing just ten episodes due to low ratings.

And the audience responded.

Ed Green's Badge and the TV Pace

In 1999, he got the call that changed his bank account and his pace of life. Dick Wolf picked him to replace Benjamin Bratt in the tenth season of Law & Order. Detective Ed Green was no by-the-book cop, bringing an elegance and calm that contrasted with the aggressiveness of his castmates.

For nine years he filmed 198 episodes of the longest-running police franchise on American television. Martin became the face of procedural justice at a time when TV series were beginning to devour cinema's prestige. In 2005, he paused filming to reprise his role as Tom Collins in the big-screen adaptation of Rent directed by Chris Columbus.

He left the series voluntarily in 2008. The physical toll of filming on New York streets through endless winters outweighed the million-dollar salary. After leaving, he sought smaller projects and returned to the stage with Shakespeare productions at the Shakespeare in the Park festival.

The industry tends to punish those who leave a hit series at its peak.

From Central City to Behavioral Psychology

In 2014, The CW offered him the role of Joe West in The Flash. The project seemed like a minor risk within the superhero genre, but it became a staple of the network's lineup for nearly a decade. Martin played Barry Allen's adoptive father and brought the dramatic weight needed to keep the sci-fi storylines from feeling ridiculous.

Nine full seasons marked his time in Vancouver, where the series was filmed. Despite its financial success, the actor wanted a leading role that didn't depend on special effects or colorful costumes. In 2022, he announced his exit from the DC Comics universe to lead a new NBC project.

In 2023, The Irrational premiered, with him playing an expert in human behavior who solves crimes through logic and observation. The series moved away from frantic pacing to focus on pure acting. Filming of the first installment was disrupted by the Hollywood actors' strike.

The biographical project about Marvin Gaye titled Sexual Healing has been stalled since 2014 due to legal problems over the song rights. The production accumulated a debt of more than $5 million before finally stopping in Europe. Martin shot 70% of the footage on location in Belgium and Luxembourg, but the material has never been released commercially.