Zach Grenier is particularly good at making professional authority feel faintly unwelcome. We rate his subtle work in ensembles, though being so readily cast as the man in charge can make the next role too easy to anticipate.
Fi1m perspective
The regional manager in Fight Club (1999) is exactly the sort of man Zach Grenier makes convincing: professionally established, with little warmth to spare. As Richard Chesler, he gives David Fincher's satire a familiar kind of corporate authority alongside Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. We found the violence uncomfortable because Norton and Pitt make the male self-pity behind it recognisable. The speeches can grow tiresome, but the performances keep the film from becoming merely a lecture, and Grenier's smaller contribution fits that approach.
Donnie Brasco (1997) casts him as Dr. Berger, a marriage therapist, rather than another corporate figure. We rate the film highly for the uneasy friendship played by Al Pacino and Johnny Depp, though the family story is thin. That weakness makes the therapist's role a less promising place to take the measure of Grenier than the film's quality might suggest. Neither film needs him to dominate, and his willingness to remain part of the ensemble is a strength worth noticing.
His work has not simply consisted of finding another desk. Talk Radio (1988), in which he played Sid Greenberg, carried a role from the original stage production into film. Television gave him the recurring part of Andy Cramed in Deadwood (2004–06), while Zodiac (2007) reunited him with Fincher as Mel Nicolai. The more substantial turn was David Lee, the senior divorce lawyer in The Good Wife (2010–16), who became a signature part and gave that familiar professional authority longer to develop.
Lee gives the steeliness a specific purpose: this is a lawyer determined to protect his own position. Grenier's subtlety matters here, since a character concerned above all with looking after himself could easily become tiresome. He is good at remaining interesting within an ensemble without making every appearance a special event. The reservation is predictability: repeated casting as authority figures can mean we recognise the type before we attend to the performance. Start with The Good Wife if you want to see him given room to work.
Biography
Zach Grenier is an American actor known for roles in film, television and stage. He was born in Englewood, New Jersey, and attended the University of Michigan and Boston University.
He appeared as Dr. Berger in the 1997 film Donnie Brasco. Other film credits include Twister (1996), Tommy Boy (1995), Fight Club (1999) as Richard Chesler, and Zodiac (2007) as Mel Nicolai. On television he played Andy Cramed in Deadwood (2004–06) and David Lee in The Good Wife (2010–16) and its spinoff The Good Fight (2017–22).
Grenier received a Tony Award nomination for his performance in the 2009 Broadway production of 33 Variations.
