Michael Drayer

Drayer's career started the way a lot of New York-based actors' careers start: a guest spot on a procedural. His 2004 appearance on *Third Watch* was his first screen credit (IMDb), and it came early enough that he was essentially learning on the job in front of a camera. *The Sopranos* followed — another New York institution, and the kind of credit that opens doors even if the role is small. The mid-to-late 2000s brought film work that put him alongside some serious talent. *August Rush* (2007) and *The Wrestler* (2008) — Aronofsky's brutal, intimate portrait of a broken-down pro wrestler — gave him exposure in projects that people actually talked about. *Before I Disappear* (2014) and *Nerve* (2016) kept the film side of his career moving, and *The Vanishing of Sidney Hall* (2017) added another title to a list that was starting to look genuinely eclectic rather than just busy. Television is where Drayer's built the most sustained recognition, though. His recurring role as Cisco in *Mr. Robot* — the USA Network series that became one of the defining tech-paranoia dramas of the 2010s — is the work most viewers associate with him first. Gabe in *Deception* and Eddie in *Sneaky Pete* followed, cementing his reputation as a reliable presence in serialized drama (Wikipedia, Rotten Tomatoes). The Houdini casting in *Timeless* is one of those choices that doesn't fit a neat pattern, which is probably why it's worth mentioning. More recently, his turn as Owen Frawley in *Hightown* season 3 and appearances in three separate 2021 films — *Catch the Fair One*, *Flinch*, and *Baby Money* — suggest someone who's not slowing down or narrowing his focus. Hard to say if there's a single defining role still ahead of him, but the trajectory doesn't suggest he's coasting.