Sam Jaeger

The supporting role he didn't want to stay in

Sam Jaeger landed in New York with a college degree under his arm and the urgency of someone who knows talent doesn't pay the rent. The year was 1999 when he landed his first small role in Law & Order. It was a brief appearance, but enough to show him that his place was in front of the camera.

Soon after, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue more than one-scene roles in police dramas. In 2001, he appeared in Traffic under Steven Soderbergh's direction. It was a tiny part that gave him a close look at how a big-budget machine worked.

That same year, he shot Behind Enemy Lines on location in Slovakia. The shoot was physically demanding. But Jaeger was after something more than being the young face in a commercial action movie.

And the gamble paid off.

His face became familiar to American audiences thanks to television. In 2010, NBC premiered Parenthood, and Jaeger stepped into the role of Joel Graham for more than a hundred episodes. That character gave him the financial stability that many actors of his generation never achieved.

Behind the camera and under the pressure of the script

In 2011, he decided that acting wasn't enough for his creative ambitions. He wrote, directed and starred in Take Me Home, an independent film in which he shared the screen with his wife, actress Amber Jaeger. The production cost a fraction of what Hollywood typically spends on catering.

The film won Best Film at the Rhode Island Film Festival that same year. It was a personal project shot in just 20 days across several states. That confirmed Jaeger's ability to manage a crew was the real deal.

But independent film kept knocking on his door.

In 2014 he appeared in American Sniper, directed by Clint Eastwood. The shoot was lean and direct (pure old-school Clint). Jaeger played Captain Martens in a production that grossed more than $547 million worldwide.

His most noticeable change of pace came in 2018 with his casting in The Handmaid’s Tale. Playing Mark Tuello allowed him to move away from the perfect-father image the industry had pinned on him for years. His character on the Hulu series became a key piece of the political storyline starting in season two.

There was no turning back.

In 2019, he joined the cast of Why Women Kill as Rob Stanton. Marc Cherry's series demanded a dark comedic tone and a cynicism he had never explored before. He worked alongside Ginnifer Goodwin in a storyline set in the 1960s.

In 2021 he played Roe Messner in the feature film The Eyes of Tammy Faye. The production had an estimated budget of $12 million. For this role, he had to sit through makeup sessions that altered his usual appearance.

In 2022 he starred in the Netflix miniseries Devil in Ohio, playing Peter Mathis. Filming took place mainly in Vancouver, Canada. The series racked up 35.4 million viewing hours in its first week on the platform.