Jason Stuart is an award-winning actor, stand-up comic, and LGBTQ+ activist whose career spans more than 260 film and television credits. Born in the Bronx and raised in Los Angeles, Stuart has built a reputation for bold, unexpected performances that blend humor, humanity, and fearless authenticity.
A self-described insecure Jewish kid who found refuge in performance, Stuart credits Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl with “saving his life”—a revelation thatlaunched a lifelong pursuit of storytelling that challenges stereotypes and flipsexpectations. That instinct led to one of his most striking turns as a heterosexual Christian plantation owner in Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation, a role that mirrored and reframed the prejudice he’s fought his entire life.
Most recently, Stuart serves as actor, director, producer and co-writer of the indie film REDLINING, a timely and provocative film examining systemic inequality and the personal cost of generational injustice. Anchored by a deeply human performance from Stuart, the film also features Alexandra Paul in a striking turn that powerfully showcases her dramatic depth. Stuart brings nuance, empathy, and quiet power to a story that confronts America’s unfinished business head-on. The film continues his commitment to socially conscious storytelling and adds another bold chapter to a career defined by fearless choices and cultural relevance.
Stuart has appeared in studio favorites including Kindergarten Cop and Vegas Vacation, and on hit series such as The Closer, My Wife & Kids, Goliath (oppositeJ.K. Simmons), and Judd Apatow’s Love. Indie audiences know him from Oscar winner Sean Baker’s Tangerine, Ira Sachs’ Love Is Strange (with John Lithgow and Alfred Molina), and the Amazon comedy series Smothered, which he co-created and starred in alongside Mitch Hara. The series earned Stuart the Indie Series Award for Best Actor in a Comedy and sparked a new wave of acclaim as a content creator with the motto: “We don’t wait for permission to create.”
A highly sought-after stand-up comedian, Stuart tours nationally and released the comedy album I’m the Daddy and I Have Candy. He is also an in-demand speaker on diversity and inclusion and the author of the memoir Shut Up, I’m Talking! Offscreen, he serves as National Co-Chair of the SAG-AFTRA LGBTQ Committee, which he cofounded in 2004.
Stuart has also recently completed the horror film Blackwood, the drama I Got Next, in which he plays a basketball coach mentoring a special-needs child, and the acclaimed indie drama Hank, which won Best LGBTQ Short at the Los Angeles International Film Festival and earned him a Best Actor nomination at the Glendale International Film Festival.
Grounded in comedy, driven by activism, and inspired by Viola Davis’s words — “My dreams had to be bigger than my fears”—Jason Stuart continues to pursue roles that are as meaningful as they are unexpected, consistently showing up as his most fearless and authentic self.