A member of the American acting community, known mostly as one of many faces of NCIS, is Sean Murray, who began his career long before getting into this role. Born on November 15, 1977, in Bethesda, Maryland, he was raised around screen stories due to the fact that his stepfather is Donald P. Bellisario, one of the prominent producers. Yet, even if a child grows surrounded by television, success in his later career can only be obtained through hard work – it is the very case for Sean Murray. The latter gained his screen image through his performances as a child actor and his subsequent transition into a well-established adult television role without breaking the image he created earlier.
Early years
Being a child of a TV producer does not automatically turn a kid into a performer. Even if there is such an opportunity, one needs to study all techniques and practices in order to succeed later in his career, and Murray got used to this process at an early age, which can be seen from his performance. It was definitely not his goal to overshadow or even compete with other artists – Sean developed his own screen style, which has never changed.
This Boy's Life (1993) was the performer's early attempt at feature films, although even at such an early period his talent was seen, namely his ability to listen and understand other performers, which allowed him to get more attention from the producers, even in small roles.
McGee gets ready
From such a successful performance Sean got the role that made him known – Timothy McGee in the police TV series NCIS. As for the whole series, it is a procedural drama on television nowadays, but what is interesting for our case is that Murray's participation is special, as McGee becomes the very character that changes the atmosphere of the ensemble.
What was great about this character of Sean's is that he never tries to exaggerate any of its peculiarities in order to catch the audience's attention. Thus, McGee is an intellectual, clever and skilled person. At the same time, Murray succeeded in his creation because of one very important feature – his McGee is able to grow gradually with the series' progress and adapt to the environment that consists of senior characters in the plot. It is difficult to say which specific details helped him achieve this result.
Yet, his performance in the procedural drama shows that the performer is not going to be distracted by anything else in his scenes – this means that he is able to convey all needed information to the viewer. At the same time, he does it without putting emphasis on the situation but just speaks with a normal voice, which does not distract viewers from his lines or from the overall scene, as McGee turns into an active participant in the investigation and does not just give necessary information for the other characters to continue talking.
Also, Sean proved that he was the perfect performer for this kind of television genre because of his ability to support the performances of other people. There is a specific feature which is very common in procedurals, that is – actors need to have great abilities to keep dialogue going and even give necessary explanations which are often quite complex. The actor succeeded in this and proved that McGee is a very good colleague.
Not just one role
While NCIS is certainly the major part of Sean Murray's life, the career of the actor is not limited to it – he worked in film and on television before appearing in this police series. His biography is also related to a family connection to the industry because, being the son of a producer, Sean grew up close to American TV shows and knew everything necessary to succeed there from a very young age. And it is this mixture of personal abilities and the environment he grew up in that made him a successful performer. He had the opportunity to watch the process of creating screen art from a very young age.
Yet, Murray also gained a lot of fame without being very active in press conferences and giving numerous statements to the media – thus, he has proved that he really is the performer playing Timothy McGee: his screen characters are always calm and composed, intellectual and observant at the same time. They usually do not look out of place in the scenes and, being part of the ensemble, are not distracting, which is why it is not surprising that his performances are appreciated by many fans.
Sean Murray's biography is, therefore, the history of a performer born and raised in a family related to the television business and gaining a certain style of performing at a very early age thanks to such an environment, which helped him get his major TV role – Timothy McGee on NCIS in 2003 after starting with This Boy's Life (1993).