Scott Grimes

The Kid Who Survived the '80s

Scott Grimes made his film debut at eleven years old. In 1984 he appeared in the TV movie The Night They Saved Christmas and soon after faced furry alien creatures in Critters (1986). Unlike many other child actors of his generation, he was not consumed by the industry or by the excesses of 1980s Hollywood.

Grimes has never stopped working.

Throughout the 1990s he took on a steady stream of work in TV series and minor films. His big break came with the role of Will McCorkle in Party of Five. He spent six seasons there as the lead's best friend, proving he could keep up with a hit national production.

In 2001 Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks cast him in Band of Brothers. He played Sergeant Donald Malarkey in one of the most ambitious productions in the history of American cable television. Filming in England changed the way he understood the profession, because the physical demands were absolute.

From Medical Drama to Acid Comedy

In 2003 he joined the most famous hospital on television. His character on ER started out as a clumsy, somewhat annoying intern whom nobody expected to last very long. But audiences connected with Archie Morris, and the writers decided to keep him on the staff until the series finale in 2009.

Then came animation.

Seth MacFarlane signed on in 2005 to voice Steve Smith in American Dad!. The role let him show off his singing and absurd humor without having to go through makeup. His working relationship with MacFarlane grew so close that Grimes became a fixture in nearly all of his later projects.

Grimes is an actor directors trust for his technical reliability. In 2017, he put on the uniform of the Union to play pilot Gordon Malloy in The Orville. The science fiction series required him to shoot long days in front of green screens and handle dialogue loaded with invented technical jargon.

Milestones and Mature Projects

Christopher Nolan called him in 2023 for a supporting role in Oppenheimer. He played an advisor in the courtroom scenes and shared the screen with Robert Downey Jr. in one of that year's biggest box office hits. He didn't need many lines for his presence to work in a three-hour historical drama.

In 2024 he reunited with MacFarlane for the Ted TV prequel. He played Matty Bennett, the father of the family in a '90s-set comedy that required a very specific tone of gritty, nostalgic humor. Filming for the first season lasted several months at Universal's studios in California.

Grimes charges a standard voice-over session fee set by the SAG-AFTRA union for top-tier television productions.