Michael Shapiro is an American
actor
An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), l ...
, and
theatre director
A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical theatre performance, etc. by unifying various endeavors a ...
, best known for voicing the ''
Half-Life
Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable at ...
'' characters
G-Man
''G-man'' (short for "government man", plural ''G-men'') is an American slang term for agents of the United States Government. It is especially used as a term for an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
''G-man'' is also a term ...
and
Barney Calhoun and the only voice actor who worked in all Half Life games.
Early life
In 1987, Shapiro helped launch the Annex Theater and performed in many of their productions. For a time he lived in
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...
until moving to
Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, behi ...
in 2000.
Career

Michael Shapiro is most famous for voicing
Barney Calhoun and the
G-Man
''G-man'' (short for "government man", plural ''G-men'') is an American slang term for agents of the United States Government. It is especially used as a term for an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
''G-man'' is also a term ...
in all of the characters' appearances in the
''Half-Life'' series. Other video games in which he is credited as "Mike Shapiro" are ''
Blood II: The Chosen'', ''
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories'' and ''
Torin's Passage''. He has also voiced many
radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transm ...
and TV commercials. Shapiro is a director of
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication Media (communication), medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of Transmission (telecommunications), television tra ...
shows and
theater
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actor, actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The p ...
productions, with some of his shows being shown on ''
Strike.TV''. In 2007, his TV pilot ''Family Values'', starring
Rob Riggle
Robert A. Riggle Jr. (born April 21, 1970) is an American actor, comedian, and former United States Marine Officer. He is known for his work as a correspondent on Comedy Central's ''The Daily Show'' from 2006 to 2008; as a cast member on ''Satu ...
, was screened at the
New York Television Festival
The New York Television Festival (NYTVF) is a yearly festival dedicated to the celebration and promotion of independent small-screen productions, web series, and television.
Background
The festival was founded in 2005, and is held in venues acr ...
.
Filmography
Video games
Television
Film
References
External links
Official website*
American male voice actors
Living people
American male film actors
Jewish American male actors
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
American directors
American male video game actors
Year of birth missing (living people)
21st-century American Jews
Place of birth missing (living people)
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