Ashley Zukerman

Ashley Zukerman is an Australian actor whose career spans television, film, and stage, marked by critically acclaimed performances and a distinctive ability to inhabit complex characters. Born in Santa Monica, California on 30 November 1983, he moved with his family to Melbourne at the age of two, where he grew up in a bilingual Jewish household; his father Moshe, an Israeli immigrant, and his mother Ingrid, a Peruvian, spoke Hebrew at home, giving him fluency in multiple languages and a rich cultural perspective. He attended Wesley College in Glen Waverley before beginning a science and engineering degree at Monash University, only to abandon it for the Victorian College of the Arts, where he graduated in 2006 and launched his professional acting journey. Zukerman’s early stage work earned praise, notably his role as Timms in The History Boys with the Melbourne Theatre Company in 2007, and later as Orlando in As You Like It and Joe Pitt in Angels in America, the latter contributing to the production’s Helpmann Award for Best Play in 2014. His television breakthrough came as Senior Constable Michael Sandrelli in the Australian police drama Rush, a performance that garnered a Logie nomination, followed by the award‑winning portrayal of hacker Jesse Banks in the political thriller The Code, which secured him the AACTA Award for Best Lead Actor in a Television Drama in 2014. Internationally, Zukerman expanded his résumé with roles such as Dr. Charlie Isaacs in WGN America’s Manhattan, Vice President Peter MacLeish in Designated Survivor, and a recurring part in HBO’s Succession. In 2021 he was cast as Robert Langdon in the NBC pilot of The Lost Symbol, and he later appeared in the Netflix Fear Street horror trilogy. His recent work includes the Netflix‑released biographical miniseries Apple Cider Vinegar (2025), demonstrating his continuing versatility across genres.