Ben McKenzie

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Ben was born and raised in Texas. After graduating magna cum laude from the University of Virginia with a degree in Economics and Political Science, he moved to New York to find work as an actor. 

 

Ben most recently revisited his Economics degree with his upcoming documentary “Everyone is Lying to You for Money” based on his New York Times bestselling book, Easy Money.  The film premiered in 2025 at SXSW London. Ben wrote, directed, and produced the film to document his extensive travel and research while writing Easy Money.  The film crisscrosses the globe from El Salvador to Austin, London to Miami, and New York to the US Senate flood to prove that not only is cryptocurrency not currency at all, but potentially the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. It is an on-the-ground look at a perfect storm of 2008 Housing Bubble–level irresponsibility and criminal fraud potentially ten times more devastating than Bernie Madoff.

 

On the acting side, Ben starred in Grand Horizons on Broadway, which received a Tony nomination for Best New Play in 2020.  

 

McKenzie began his acting career in 2003 when he was cast as the lead of the hit Fox series The OC and aired for four seasons.

 

Ben has appeared in Junebug with Amy Adams and 88 Minutes starring Al Pacino. He was praised for his solo turn in the indie film Johnny Got His Gun, based on Dalton Trumbo’s novel. He co-starred in Some Kind of Beautiful with Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek.

 

Ben’s other film credits include Decoding Annie Parker opposite Helen Hunt and a starring role in the short film The Eight Percent which screened at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.

 

In 2009, Ben returned to series television as a patrol officer on the streets of Los Angeles in Southland. The critically acclaimed show ran for five years. Ben has also guest starred on the comedy Men at Work. 

 

Ben starred as ‘Detective James Gordon’ on the series Gotham, which was the story behind Detective Gordon’s rise to prominence in Gotham City in the years before Batman’s arrival. Ben made his directorial debut in Season 3 with episode 316. In Season 4, Ben became even more creatively involved in the show by writing episode 404 and directing his second episode, 416. For the fifth and final season, Ben directed episode 506 and wrote episode 509.

 

In 2019, Ben returned to the big screen The Report, alongside Adam Driver and Annette Benning, which premiered at Sundance. 

 

Ben starred alongside Aaron Eckhart in the action-thriller Line of Duty as the antagonist in the film which follows a cop to find a kidnap victim whose abductor was accidentally killed.