PETER GANIM is an American actor, descended of Lebanese-Syrian and Slovak-Rusyn immigrants. Born on the army base at Fort Knox, Kentucky, he started out on the stage as a kid in Cleveland, Ohio, burnished his professional credentials in the hotbed of Atlanta, Georgia, then flirted with a career in both Paris and New York City before finally settling, over twenty years ago, in Manhattan, where he now lives and works.
A maker of short films , a writer, as well as an award-winning theater director, he is likely best known as an actor of versatility and distinction. Accomplished in classical and contemporary work and methods, he’s been lauded as a "virtuoso" for his “powerhouse” performances on stage in Man and Superman, Hamlet, The Misanthrope, Cloud 9, Othello, A Doll's House, Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love, Tracers, Handler, and Tango Palace, in productions helmed by directors as idiosyncratic as Joseph Chaikin, Nancy Keystone, and Tyne Rafaeli. He's collaborated with New York City’s Obie Award-winning Middle Eastern company, Noor Theatre, as well as in readings, workshops, and other productions with the Atlantic, the New Group, the Lark (now, sadly defunct), the Public, and Playwrights Horizons. He made his Off-Broadway debut in the final production of Tony Randall’s acclaimed National Actors Theatre, Right You Are!, and later, his Broadway debut in the company of Bartlett Sher’s Tony Award-winning production of Oslo, at Lincoln Center Theater.
On the screen, he’s appeared in several independent features and shorts, notably, his award-winning performance as ‘the Man’ in Anthony Haden Salerno’s festival favorite, Lapse. On television, (and on laptops, tablets, and smartphones) he’s been featured on the soaps, (when they were still in town), a couple of times on the storied Law & Order franchise, and frequently guest stars on both network episodics and streaming series.
He speaks French, Spanish, and Italian (in that order of fluency), acts in scripted Arabic, and is actively honing his Slavic skills...yet he’s just as in demand for his portrayals of American men from the Rust Belt to the Deep South to that grown-up boy next door. He's a rusty baritone, is bearded more often than not, will regularly be found running along the Hudson or through Central Park, and he is, according to the latest reports, one of the good guys.
