Mark Feuerstein
Mark Feuerstein is an actor, born 1971.
Three network sitcoms carried his name between 1997 and 2002, and none of them is what Mark Feuerstein is remembered for. He came up as a recurring boyfriend on the NBC comedy Caroline in the City, got noticed for a guest appearance in the second season of Sex and the City, and was then handed Fired Up, Conrad Bloom and Good Morning, Miami in quick succession. The leading man the industry kept trying to build did not stick.
What did stick was Royal Pains, where he played the concierge doctor Hank Lawson. That show is the correct use of him. Feuerstein is very good at likeable competence with a slight edge of self-regard, a man who is right and would prefer you noticed, and a light, sunlit summer procedural is exactly the format that rewards it. The film work confirms the type: Morgan Farwell in What Women Want, Rich Beck in Two Weeks Notice, Simon Stein in In Her Shoes, all variations on the decent, faintly smug alternative.
The most interesting credits are the ones that push against it. Defiance gave him Isaac Malbin in a serious wartime ensemble, Prison Break cast him as Jacob Ness, and he has recently turned up in Lady in the Lake and Hotel Cocaine. He also plays a version of himself in Better Things, which is the wittiest thing anyone has done with his public image.
Movies (17)
- What Women Want (2000)
- Practical Magic (1998)
- Two Weeks Notice (2002)
- In Her Shoes (2005)
- Defiance (2008)
- Rules of Engagement (2000)
- Woman on Top (2000)
- The Muse (1999)
- Abandon (2002)
- In Your Eyes (2014)
- Knucklehead (2010)
- Guns & Moses (2025)
- Larry Gaye: Renegade Male Flight Attendant (2015)
- Meadowland (2015)
- Life Partners (2014)
- Pro-Life (2006)
- 30 Days (1999)
TV (19)
- Prison Break (2005)
- Nemesis (2026)
- Royal Pains (2009)
- Caroline in the City (1995)
- Power Book II: Ghost (2020)
- Independent Lens (1999)
- Once and Again (1999)
- Better Things (2016)
- The Baby-Sitters Club (2020)
- Good Morning, Miami (2002)
- Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later (2017)
- Lady in the Lake (2024)
- DMV (2025)
- Fired Up (1997)
- Hotel Cocaine (2024)
- Conrad Bloom (1998)
- 9JKL (2017)
- 9JKL (2017)
- 3 lbs (2006)
Where to start with Mark Feuerstein
Royal Pains is the reason to be here. It is comfortable, sunlit, resolutely unchallenging television, and he is genuinely excellent in it, which is a harder combination than prestige drama makes it look.
For a sharper view, Better Things is the smart pick, since playing himself lets him send up exactly the persona the sitcoms were selling. Prison Break is the against-type one and worth seeing for how far he pushes it.
Among the films, What Women Want and Two Weeks Notice are the mainstream romantic comedies where he is the man the heroine does not choose, and In Her Shoes is the best written of that group. Defiance is the serious one and the only place he gets to be in a war film at all.
Caroline in the City is where it all started, if you want the origin.
Royal Pains and the leads
Four network sitcoms were built around him and cancelled inside a season each before Royal Pains ran for eight years on USA. 9JKL is the one he created himself, based on the fact that he genuinely lived between his parents and his brother.
The romantic comedies
For about a decade he was the decent man the heroine does not end up with, opposite Mel Gibson, Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock. In Her Shoes is the best film in the group and gives him more to work with than the others.
The dramatic and recent work
The later work is more interesting than the sitcom decade. Prison Break and Power Book II are the straight dramatic runs, Lady in the Lake is the recent prestige series, and the Wet Hot American Summer revival is the funniest thing here.