Harold Perrineau
American actor
Harold Perrineau (born August 7, 1963) is an American actor. His breakout role was in the independent film Smoke (1995), for which he was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male. He went on to appear as Mercutio in Romeo+Juliet (1996) and Link in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions (both 2003).
On television, he has starred as Augustus Hill in the HBO prison drama Oz (1997–2003), Michael Dawson in the ABC series Lost (2004–2010), and Sheriff Boyd Stevens in the MGM+ horror series From (2022–present).
Perrineau has also appeared in the films The Edge (1997), The Best Man (1999), Woman on Top (2000), and 28 Weeks Later (2007). His other television credits include Sons of Anarchy (2012), Constantine (2014–2015), Claws (2017–2022), and The Rookie (2019–2021).
Early life
Perrineau was born in Brooklyn, New York City. His parents changed his name to Williams when he was a child, but he later changed it back, after discovering there was already a Harold Williams in the Screen Actors Guild. He attended Shenandoah University and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
Career
In 1989, Perrineau was cast as the original Tyrone Jackson in the world premiere of the stage adaptation of the 1980 hit movie Fame (now known as Fame: The Musical) at the Walnut Street Theatre, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The public source identifies “Harold Perrineau” as american actor. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Harold, Perrineau and American.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q310551. VIAF identifies the subject as 95116869. The Library of Congress control number is no2001012352. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1963, 1995, 1996 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “Harold Perrineau” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.