Jonathan Kimble Simmons is an American actor. He is considered one of the most eminent character actors of his generation.[2][3] He has appeared in over 200 films and television roles since his debut in 1986. He is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Golden Globe Award.
He earned acclaim for his numerous supporting roles appearing in films such as The Cider House Rules (1999), Thank You for Smoking (2006), Juno (2007), Burn After Reading (2008), Up in the Air (2009), and La La Land (2016). For his role as the sadistic music instructor Terence Fletcher in Damien Chazelle's psychological drama Whiplash (2014), he received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He portrayed William Frawley in Being the Ricardos (2021), for which he received another nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Simmons is also known for his role as J. Jonah Jameson in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy (2002–2007). He reprised his role as Jameson in various Marvel media unrelated to the Raimi trilogy, including multiple animated series, the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), the web series The Daily Bugle (2019-2023), the Sony's Spider-Man Universe film Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), and the animated film Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023). He also played Commissioner James Gordon in the DC Extended Universe film Justice League (2017).
On television, he is known for playing Dr. Emil Skoda on the NBC series Law & Order, white supremacist prisoner Vernon Schillinger on the HBO series Oz, and Assistant Police Chief Will Pope on TNT's The Closer. From 2017 to 2019, he starred as Howard Silk in the Starz series Counterpart. He's also known for his roles in the comedy series Brockmire, the miniseries Defending Jacob, and The Stand (both 2020), as well as the science-fiction series Night Sky (2022). He appeared in commercials for Farmers Insurance and has voiced the Yellow M&M since 1996.
As a voice artist, he is known for voicing Cave Johnson in the video game Portal 2 (2011) and its spin-off Aperture Desk Job (2022), Tenzin in The Legend of Korra (2012–2014), Stanford "Ford" Pines in Gravity Falls (2015–2016), Kai in Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016), Mayor Leodore Lionheart in Zootopia (2016), and the titular character in Klaus (2019). He has also voiced roles in the HBO Max animated series Infinity Train (2021), the Amazon Prime Video animated series Invincible (2021), and Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022).
