Stephen Lang is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 and playwright

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

. He started in theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 on Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 but is well known for his film portrayals of Stonewall Jackson

Stonewall Jackson

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 in Gods and Generals

Gods and Generals (film)

Gods and Generals is a 2003 American film based on the novel Gods and Generals by Jeffrey Shaara. It depicts events that take place prior to those shown in the 1993 film Gettysburg, which was based on The Killer Angels, a novel by Shaara's father, Michael...

(2003) and George Pickett

George Pickett

George Edward Pickett was a career United States Army officer who became a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War...

 in Gettysburg (1993), as well as for his 2009 roles as Colonel Miles Quaritch in Avatar and as Texan lawman Charles Winstead

Charles Winstead

Charles Winstead was an FBI Agent in the 1930s-40s, famous for being one of the agents who shot and killed John Dillinger on July 22, 1934 in Chicago, Illinois....

 in Public Enemies, in addition to his role as Commander Nathaniel Taylor in the 2011 television series Terra Nova

Terra Nova (TV series)

Terra Nova is an American science fiction drama television series that airs on Fox on Monday nights. It premiered September 26, 2011 with a one-and-a-half-hour episode...

.

Lang was the co-artistic director (along with Carlin Glynn and Lee Grant

Lee Grant

Lee Grant is an American stage, film and television actress, and film director. She was blacklisted for 12 years from film work beginning in the mid-1950s, but worked in the theatre, and would eventually win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Felicia Carp in the...

) of the famed Actor's Studio at its headquarters in New York City from 2004 to 2006.
Lang was born in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, the son of Theresa (née

Married and maiden names

A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....

 Volmer) and Eugene Lang

Eugene Lang

Eugene M. "Gene" Lang is an American philanthropist who founded REFAC Technology Development Corporation in 1951. He created the I Have A Dream Foundation in 1981, and Project Pericles in 2001. He has also made large donations to Swarthmore College, The New School's undergraduate liberal arts...

, a prominent entrepreneur and philanthropist who has reportedly given away $150 million.