Jeremy Merton Sisto was born on October 6, 1974, in Grass Valley, California, into a family already connected to the arts. His mother, Reedy Gibbs, was an actress, while his father, Dick Sisto, was a jazz musician and educator. His younger sister, Meadow Sisto, also became an actress. Creativity therefore appears to have been less a career choice in the Sisto household than something that simply wandered around looking for somewhere to sit.

Sisto's earliest years were considerably removed from Hollywood glamour. His parents built a stone house on 20 acres in the lower Sierra Nevada mountains, and the family lived there without electricity or indoor plumbing during the first years of his life. His parents divorced when he was young, and Sisto subsequently spent much of his childhood in Chicago. He became interested in acting while still young and performed with Chicago theater companies before Hollywood became his principal workplace.

His first feature-film appearance came in Lawrence Kasdan's Grand Canyon in 1991. The ensemble drama featured Kevin Kline, Danny Glover, Steve Martin and Mary McDonnell and examined the intersecting lives of people in Los Angeles. It was an impressive film in which to make a debut, particularly for a young actor who was still finding his place in the profession.

Sisto briefly attended the University of California, Los Angeles, but acting was already consuming enough of his attention that he eventually concentrated on it full time. During the early 1990s he accumulated roles in television and film, including Desperate Choices: To Save My Child and The Shaggy Dog. His breakthrough into widespread popular recognition, however, arrived in 1995 with a movie that became one of the defining teen comedies of its generation.

In Clueless, Sisto played Elton Tiscia, the wealthy and thoroughly self-satisfied Beverly Hills teenager whom Cher Horowitz mistakenly attempts to match with her friend Tai. Alicia Silverstone starred as Cher, with Stacey Dash as Dionne, Brittany Murphy as Tai and Paul Rudd as Josh. Sisto's Elton is initially presented as a possible romantic prospect for Tai, but things deteriorate rather dramatically when it becomes clear that Elton is actually interested in Cher.

The character is not exactly a model of gentlemanly behavior. After Cher rejects him, Elton leaves her stranded in a parking lot, inadvertently setting up one of the film's most memorable sequences. Yet Sisto played the smug, entitled teenager effectively enough that Elton became one of the movie's instantly recognizable supporting characters. Clueless grew far beyond its initial success, becoming an enduring piece of 1990s popular culture and ensuring that Sisto would forever have people remembering him as the fellow who thought Cher was interested in him.

Sisto was already determined not to become permanently attached to one type of character. The year after Clueless, he appeared in Ridley Scott's White Squall, starring Jeff Bridges as the captain of a sailing school ship. Sisto played Frank Beaumont, one of the young men aboard the vessel. The physically demanding maritime drama could hardly have been further removed from the fashionable shopping malls and convertibles of Beverly Hills.

He continued building an eclectic film résumé with Suicide Kings in 1997, appearing alongside Christopher Walken, Denis Leary, Jay Mohr and Sean Patrick Flanery. Sisto played T.K. in the dark comedy-thriller about a group of young men who kidnap a former Mafia figure in an attempt to obtain ransom money for another kidnapping victim. Unfortunately for them, abducting Christopher Walken rarely appears to be a sound long-term strategy.

Other late-1990s projects included Bongwater, Without Limits, Playing by Heart and the television miniseries The '60s. Sisto also took on one of the largest possible roles in Western culture when he portrayed Jesus in the 1999 television film Jesus. The production featured an international cast including Jacqueline Bisset, Gary Oldman and Armin Mueller-Stahl. Going from Elton in Clueless to Jesus Christ within four years is an impressive demonstration of an actor refusing to stay in his assigned lane.

One of the defining roles of Sisto's career arrived when he joined HBO's acclaimed drama Six Feet Under. Created by Alan Ball, the series centered on the Fisher family and the funeral home they operated in Los Angeles. It mixed family drama, dark comedy, sexuality, grief and frequent contemplation of mortality, usually before breakfast.

Sisto played Billy Chenowith, the younger brother of Rachel Griffiths' Brenda Chenowith. Billy was intelligent, creative, charismatic and deeply troubled. His mental-health struggles and volatile behavior made him one of the series' most unpredictable recurring characters, while his intense relationship with Brenda provided some of the show's most difficult family material.

The role demonstrated the dramatic range that Sisto had been developing throughout the previous decade. Billy could be charming and sympathetic in one scene and deeply unsettling in another. The performance required considerably more than playing instability for dramatic effect; Sisto had to make Billy recognizable as a human being whose behavior affected everyone around him while still allowing audiences to understand his vulnerability.

Six Feet Under became one of the most critically acclaimed television dramas of its era, with a cast that included Peter Krause, Michael C. Hall, Frances Conroy, Lauren Ambrose and Freddy Rodriguez. Sisto later spoke warmly about his connection with the cast and described the series as a particularly special experience. His work as part of the ensemble earned Screen Actors Guild Award nominations.

While appearing on Six Feet Under, Sisto continued working extensively in films. He starred opposite Angela Bettis in the 2002 psychological horror film May, playing Adam Stubbs, a mechanic who becomes the object of the title character's increasingly disturbing affection. The film developed a strong cult following and provided another example of Sisto's attraction to characters and stories located somewhat outside Hollywood's comfortable center.

In 2003 he appeared in Wrong Turn, the horror film about travelers encountering a group of murderous inhabitants in the West Virginia wilderness. Sisto played Scott alongside a cast that included Eliza Dushku and Desmond Harrington. The film spawned an entire franchise, although anyone who watched the original could reasonably conclude that taking an unscheduled shortcut through unfamiliar woodland was an activity best avoided permanently.

Sisto's credits during this period also included Thirteen, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, A Lot Like Love and Unknown. He was becoming one of those actors whose face audiences recognized even when they could not immediately remember where they had last seen him. Considering the sheer variety of his roles, their confusion was understandable.

His theater work remained important as well. Sisto appeared on Broadway in the 2006 production of Festen, based on the Danish film about a deeply dysfunctional family gathering. His stage work earned recognition earlier in his career as well, including a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for featured performance.

Then came one of television's most durable institutions. Sisto joined Law & Order as Detective Cyrus Lupo during the show's eighteenth season. Interestingly, he had appeared shortly before that as an entirely different character, defense attorney Clint Glover, before returning as Lupo. Television apparently decided that nobody would notice if they changed his occupation and put him on the other side of the interrogation table.

Detective Lupo became a regular member of the New York Police Department team, initially working with Jesse L. Martin's Detective Ed Green and later with Anthony Anderson's Detective Kevin Bernard. Sisto appeared in the role from 2007 through the conclusion of the original run of Law & Order in 2010.

Lupo was more restrained than many of the volatile characters Sisto had previously played. He returned to New York after working abroad and gradually hardened as he encountered the brutality of police work. The character also studied law at night, giving him an unusual interest in what happened to cases after detectives handed them to prosecutors.

Sisto later explained that the structure of Law & Order required a different style of characterization. Lupo could not simply embark on enormous emotional arcs whenever the actor fancied one because the show's famously disciplined format placed the criminal case at the center. That restraint suited Sisto's performance and allowed him to become part of one of American television's most recognizable fictional police squads.

After several years investigating murder, Sisto made a welcome turn toward comedy. In 2011 he began starring as George Altman in the ABC sitcom Suburgatory. George is a single father who moves with his teenage daughter Tessa, played by Jane Levy, from New York City to the supposedly safer suburbs. He quickly discovers that suburban life possesses its own peculiar dangers, although considerably fewer of them require Law & Order's familiar “dun-dun.”

The series gave Sisto an opportunity to display a lighter side that audiences familiar with Billy Chenowith or Cyrus Lupo might not have expected. George was a loving but frequently bewildered father trying to protect his daughter while navigating the bizarre social customs of their new community. Sisto's performance earned him a Critics' Choice Television Award nomination for Best Actor in a Comedy Series.

The father-daughter relationship was central to Suburgatory, and Sisto has said that becoming a father himself helped him connect with George's sometimes excessive determination to protect his daughter. The series ran for three seasons and substantially broadened his television identity beyond the intense dramatic characters with which he had often been associated.

Sisto subsequently appeared in series including The Returned and Wicked City and continued taking film roles. His voice also became an asset in animation. Blessed with a naturally deep baritone, he voiced Batman in the animated film Justice League: The New Frontier. He later provided the voice of King Runeard in Disney's Frozen II, proving that the same voice could apparently handle Gotham City and Arendelle with equal authority.

Another major television chapter began in 2018 when Sisto joined the CBS procedural drama FBI, created by Dick Wolf and Craig Turk. He plays Jubal Valentine, the assistant special agent in charge at the FBI's New York field office. The role returned him to the world of investigations and law enforcement, although with considerably greater responsibility than Detective Lupo had possessed.

Jubal is often positioned at the operational center of the series, coordinating agents and responding to rapidly developing investigations. Sisto's combination of authority, intensity and that unmistakable voice made him a natural fit for the character. His involvement also reunited him professionally with the broader Dick Wolf television universe after his years on Law & Order.

The role has become one of the longest-running parts of Sisto's career. He has also appeared as Jubal in crossover episodes involving other programs within the FBI franchise. By this point, anyone remembering Elton from Clueless could be forgiven for wondering precisely how that teenager ended up running FBI operations in New York.

Away from acting, Sisto has worked as a writer and producer and has maintained an interest in music. He plays guitar, drums and piano and has performed music in several contexts during his career. His artistic interests make sense considering his family background: an actress for a mother and jazz musician for a father provided plenty of encouragement in that direction.

Sisto married Addie Lane in 2009, and the couple have two children. He had previously been married to actress Marisa Ryan. Although much of his career has involved characters living spectacularly complicated lives, Sisto himself has generally maintained a comparatively private personal life.

Looking across his career, what becomes most noticeable is just how unwilling Jeremy Sisto has been to settle into one comfortable category. He has played an arrogant teenager, Jesus Christ, a troubled artist, a serial-killer target, Batman, a homicide detective, a suburban father and a senior FBI official. Somewhere in Hollywood there may be a casting director still trying to decide precisely what his “type” is.

Perhaps that is the point.

Sisto has said that he tends to be drawn toward darker and more complicated characters, acknowledging that his deep voice may have contributed to the industry's tendency to see something slightly ominous in him. Yet Suburgatory demonstrated that comedy suited him just as comfortably, while his long-running procedural roles proved that he could provide the steady center of an ensemble.

For one generation, Jeremy Sisto may forever be Elton cruising around Beverly Hills and making an extremely poor impression on Cher Horowitz. For another, he is the unpredictable Billy Chenowith of Six Feet Under. Law & Order viewers remember Detective Cyrus Lupo, while newer television audiences know him as Jubal Valentine.

That is a substantial journey from Clueless — although we should probably remain grateful that Elton never became an FBI agent. Cher would have had some explaining to do.