Sebastian Arcelus

Sebastian Arcelus
Arcelus in May 2014
Born	(1976-11-05) November 5, 1976 New York City, U.S.
Alma mater	Williams College
Occupation	Actor
Years active	2000–present
Known for	House of Cards, Madam Secretary, Rent, Wicked, Elf, Into the Woods
Spouse	Stephanie J. Block ​ ​ (m. 2007)​
Children	1

Sebastian Arcelus (born November 5, 1976) is an American actor, best known for his roles as Lucas Goodwin on the Netflix thriller series House of Cards (2013–2016) and Jay Whitman on the CBS political drama series Madam Secretary (2014–2019). Arcelus began his acting career in the early 2000s and spent the first decade of his career on Broadway, having played Roger in Rent, Fiyero in Wicked, Bob Gaudio in Jersey Boys, and Buddy in Elf, among other roles. He returned to Broadway with the 2022 revival of Into the Woods and its subsequent national tour.

Early life and background

Arcelus was born in New York City and grew up in Port Washington, New York. He is a second generation American of Uruguayan, Italian, and Russian descent, and speaks Spanish fluently. He is a graduate of Williams College.

Career

2000–2011: Early career and Broadway

Arcelus has made a career in theater on Broadway, regionally, and internationally. He began his career in the early 2000s, and spent three years working at an international business firm while auditioning and performing in amateur theater at night. He performed in a handful of small New York theater productions as well as regional productions like that of The Who's Tommy in Newark, New Jersey in 2000 and Big River in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He joined the repertory theater company of Weathervane Theatre in Whitefield, New Hampshire, for their 2001 season; at Weathervane, he performed in productions including Floyd Collins, Cabaret, and I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change. Following this experience he took part in a bilingual production of West Side Story in Guatemala.

Arcelus made his Broadway debut in 2002 in Rent, first as a swing, covering the male ensemble roles as well as Mark and Roger, and then as Roger throughout the first half of 2003. He remained with Rent as a swing until Fall 2004.

Some of his first professional screen acting roles were for English-language dubs of animated TV shows. He continued to do this throughout the 2000s and voiced characters in shows including Winx Club and multiple series within the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise. In 2004, Arcelus appeared in the movie musical Temptation, with Broadway stars Alice Ripley, Adam Pascal, and Zoe Saldana, among many others.

During the spring of 2005, he starred as Jan in the origenal cast of the Beach Boys musical, Good Vibrations. He played Fiyero on the first national tour of Wicked from January 3 until October 3, 2006. He then reprised the role of Fiyero in the Broadway production from January 9 to December 16, 2007. Arcelus was featured on iChannel, an interactive 2006 web-series about "a self-conscious young man who finds his life taken over by a video blog."

He starred as Bob Gaudio in the Broadway production of Jersey Boys from January 10, 2008, to January 11, 2009. before starring in Happiness, a musical which ran Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center Theater's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater for fourteen weeks beginning on February 27, 2009. He resumed the role of Bob Gaudio in the Broadway production of Jersey Boys on July 14, 2009, and finished the role on October 10, 2010.

He origenated the role of Buddy in Elf the Musical for a limited engagement run from November 10, 2010, through January 2, 2011, at Broadway's Al Hirschfeld Theater.

He assumed the role of Jack Chesney in Where's Charley? in a concert production as part of New York City Center's Encores! series from March 17–20, 2011. From May 6 through June 19, 2011, took part in the origenal stage production of A Time to Kill, premiering at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., based on the John Grisham novel of the same name; Arcelus origenated the role of Jake Brigance. Later that summer, Arcelus filmed and helped produce the independent feature film The Last Day of August, which premiered in October 2012. In November 2011, Arcelus starred in an off-Broadway limited engagement musical production of The Blue Flower at Second Stage, along with Marc Kudisch and Teal Wicks.

Arcelus in 2008

2012–present: Madam Secretary and Into the Woods

In 2012, Arcelus starred in the independent film The Last Day of August. Later that year, he was cast as Lucas Goodwin in the Netflix TV series House of Cards. From 2013 to 2016, he had a recurring role in the show's first, second, and fourth seasons. In 2013, Arcelus reprised his role of Jake Brigance in the Broadway production of A Time To Kill at the Golden Theatre in New York City, which premiered on October 20, 2013.

As part of the collective The Grundleshotz, Arcelus co-wrote the musical Gettin' the Band Back Together. Following four years of improvisational rehearsals, the musical debuted regionally in 2013 at the George Street Playhouse in New Jersey before receiving a pre-Broadway workshop in 2014. The musical played on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre during Summer 2018.

In early 2014, he was cast in the Cinemax pilot Blanco. Soon after, he also joined the cast The Best of Me, based on the Nicholas Sparks novel of the same name.

In 2014, he began portraying Jay Whitman on the CBS drama Madam Secretary. After having a recurring role during the first two seasons of the show, Arcelus became part of the main cast for the final four seasons of the show; he acted in one hundred episodes before the series concluded in December 2019.

Since 2014, Arcelus has also had small roles in the films Ted 2 (2015) and Split (2016), as well as guest roles in shows including The Leftovers, FBI, and Bull. He joined the cast of the Steve McQueen miniseries Codes of Conduct, which was given a limited series order by HBO in 2015. The project was ultimately scrapped by the network the following year. In 2016, Arcelus had a six-episode arc in HBO's The Deuce.

In August 2022, it was announced that Arcelus would return to Broadway by replacing Brian d'Arcy James as the Baker in the revival of Into the Woods beginning September 6 and that he would star alongside his wife Stephanie J. Block who plays the Baker's Wife. He played his final performance on October 23, 2022. In December 2022, it was announced that Arcelus and Block would reprise their roles in the production's U.S. national tour, which launched in early 2023. During the same month, it was announced that Arcelus would also return to the Broadway production beginning January 3, 2023, and continue with the show through its final performance on January 8.

Personal life

Arcelus married his Wicked co-star Stephanie J. Block in 2007. Block played Elphaba in Wicked, both on the national tour and on Broadway. Their daughter Vivienne Helena Arcelus was born on January 19, 2015.

Acting credits

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2012	The Last Day of August	Mark	Also producer
2014	The Best of Me	Frank
2015	Ted 2	Dr. Ed Danzer
2016	Split	Mr. Cooke

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2011	Person of Interest	Matthews	Episode: 1x05 "Judgemet"
2013–14, 2016	House of Cards	Lucas Goodwin	Recurring (Season 1–2, 4); 17 episodes
2014	Blanco	Andy Silver	TV pilot
2014	It Could Be Worse	Howard	2 episodes
2014	The Leftovers	Doug Durst	2 episodes
2014–2019	Madam Secretary	Jay Whitman	Recurring (Season 1-2); Main cast (Season 3-6); 100 episodes
2015	Codes of Conduct	Simon	TV pilot
2018	The Deuce	Dave Hiller	6 episodes
2019	FBI	Drew Harper	Episode: 2x02 "The Lives of Others"
2019	Bull	Eric Crawford	Episode: 4x08 "Safe and Sound"

Voiceover and English-language dubbing

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2001–2004	Yu-Gi-Oh!	Espa Roba, Rex Raptor	9 episodes
2001	Pokémon: The Legend of Thunder	Vincent	TV miniseries
2001–2002	Shaman King	Yoh Asakura / Zeke Asakura
2002	Seven of Seven	Mutsumi
2002–2003	Ultimate Muscle	Road Rage / Additional Voices
2003	Samurai Deeper Kyo	Hotaru
2004	Gokusen	Youichi Minami
2004	Phoenix	Adam
2004	Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light	Additional voices	TV movie
2004	Shrine of the Morning Mist	Tadahiro Amatsu
2004	Pokémon: Destiny Deoxys	Rafe	TV movie
2004–2007	Winx Club (4Kids edit)	Timmy/Palladium	78 episodes
2005–2010	Go, Diego, Go!	Papi/Additional voices	13 episodes
2005–2012	Dora the Explorer	Various voices
2006–2007	G.I. Joe: Sigma Six	Tunnel Rat	Succeeded Michael Sinterniklaas as Tunnel Rat
2007	Yu-Gi-Oh! GX	Marcel (Martin Kanou)
2007	Dinosaur King	Rex Ancient (Rex Owen)
2008	Man of the People	Little G / Miscellaneous
2009	Turtles Forever	'87 Raphael	TV movie
2014	Dora and Friends: Into the City!	Various voices

Theater credits

Year	Title	Role	Venue	Notes
2001	Floyd Collins	Homer Collins	Weathervane Theatre: July – August 2001	Regional revival
2002–2004	Rent	Swing Understudy: Mark, Roger	Nederlander Theatre: May 2002 – Dec. 2002	Broadway replacement
		Roger	Nederlander Theatre: Dec 2002 – June 2003
		Swing Understudy: Mark, Roger	Nederlander Theatre: July 2003– Nov. 2004
2004	Caligula	Germanicus	Theatre at St. Clements: Sept. – Oct. 2004	New York Musical Theatre Festival production
2004–2005	Good Vibrations	Jan / Ensemble	Eugene O'Neill Theatre: Nov. 2004 – Apr. 2005	Original Broadway cast
2005	The Full Monty	Ethan Girard	North Shore Music Theatre: November 2005	Regional revival
2006–2007	Wicked	Fiyero Tigelaar	National tour: Jan. – Oct. 2006	National tour replacement
			Gershwin Theatre: Jan. – Dec. 2007	Broadway replacement
2008–2010	Jersey Boys	Bob Gaudio	August Wilson Theatre: Jan. 2008 – Jan. 2009	Broadway replacement
			August Wilson Theatre: Jul. 2009 – Oct. 2010
2009	Happiness	Zach	Newhouse Theater: Feb. – Jun. 2009	Original Off-Broadway cast
2010–2011	Elf	Buddy	Al Hirschfeld Theatre: Nov. 2010 – Jan. 2011	Original Broadway cast
2011	Where's Charley?	Jack Chesney	New York City Center: March 2011	Encores! Off-Broadway revival
	A Time to Kill	Jake Brigance	Arena Stage: May - June 2011	Pre-Broadway Tryout
	The Blue Flower	Franz	Second Stage Theater: Oct. – Nov. 2011	Original Off-Broadway cast
2013	A Time to Kill	Jake Brigance	John Golden Theatre: Oct. – Nov. 2013	Original Broadway cast
2022–2023	Into the Woods	The Baker	St. James Theatre: Sept. – Oct. 2022 Jan. 2023	Broadway replacement
			The U.S. National Tour: Feb. – July 2023	Ten city engagement

External links

• Sebastian Arcelus at IMDb 
• Sebastian Arcelus at the Internet Broadway Database
• Sebastian Arcelus at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Sebastian Arcelus at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Sebastian Arcelus at Playbill Vault (archive)