Jay Huguley

He first realized his passion for acting while taking a directing class in college, where one of his assignments was to audition for the school play to get an idea of what actors experience in their process of attempting to score acting roles. He got the part of the Gentleman Caller in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. After rehearsing for his role, he knew this was all he wanted to do.

Huguley moved back to the United States, where he began to work regularly in theatre and studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute. He moved to Los Angeles to do a play directed by Lee’s widow, Anna Strasberg.

Huguley’s most recent roles include Heart, Baby and William Henry Moody in Lizzie, both released in 2018.

In 2016, Huguley appeared in the highly anticipated horror film, Abattoir, by the man credited for furthering the Saw franchise, Darren Lynn Bousman. Abattoir has already nabbed a sequel deal, prior to its official theatrical release.

In 2015, he appeared in Helen Hunt’s Ride, and starred as Jonah Bock in the hit indie darling, Sunny in the Dark, a feature film written by Courtney Ware, for which he took home the award for “Best Actor” from the Northeast Film Festival.

In 2013, he appeared in Steve McQueen’s film 12 Years a Slave, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Brad Pitt, and Michael Fassbender.

Huguley has twice portrayed real life historical figures. In 2013, he played Sheriff H.P. Voorhies, the man who negotiated freedom of Solomon Northup in 12 Years a Slave and most recently, as William Henry Moody, the prosecuting attorney in the infamous Lizzie Borden trial in the film Lizzie alongside Chloe Sevigny and Kristen Stewart.

In his earliest appearances on television, Huguley starred in smaller roles on MADtv, Norm, Walker, Texas Ranger, Providence, and Strong Medicine before getting more recurring roles in TV shows such as Summerland, and Alias. He also starred in 2010 as Richard Hightower on the long-running soap opera, The Young and the Restless.

In 2008, Huguley starred in David Lindsay-Abaire’s Tony Award-winning play Rabbit Hole at the Skylight Theatre. About his performance, the Los Angeles Times said, “Jay Huguley dwells inside the play’s contradictions and connects us to its anguished, buoyant heart.” In 2009, Huguley played the lead role of Henry in Tom Stoppard’s play The Real Thing at Los Angeles’ Skylight Theatre.

Jay Huguley (born July 26, 1966) is an American film, TV and theatre actor, best known for playing David on AMC’s The Walking Dead, and Jimmy Ledoux on HBO’s True Detective, opposite Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.