B.J. Novak

Benjamin Joseph Manaly Novak born July 31 1979 is an American actor comedian screenwriter author and producer He gained traction as a comedian during the early 2000s before becoming a field agent for the MTV reality prank show Punkd 2003 Novak had his breakout with a leading role as Ryan Howard on seasons 18 of the NBC mockumentary sitcom The Office 20052013 His acting writing and producing for the show earned him two Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Writers Guild of America Award alongside five nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series In the late 2000s Novak had supporting roles in the films Reign Over Me 2007 and Inglourious Basterds 2009 In the 2010s he portrayed musician Robert B Sherman in Saving Mr Banks 2013 and Marvel Comics character Alistair Smythe in The Amazing SpiderMan 2 2014 He had a starring role as Harry J Sonneborn in the biographical film The Founder 2016 and voiced Baker Smurf in The Smurfs 2011 and The Smurfs 2 2013 In television he had a recurring role as Lucas Pruit on the HBO series The Newsroom 2014 In the 2020s Novak made his film directorial debut with Vengeance 2022 which he also produced and starred in He created and wrote the FX on Hulu anthology series The Premise 2021 In addition to his film and television career Novak authored the books One More Thing Stories and Other Stories 2014 and The Book with No Pictures 2014 Description above from the Wikipedia article BJ Novak licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia