Life after ‘Grey’s Anatomy’: T.R. Knight has kept busy since leaving Seattle
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Nearly a decade after T.R. Knight endured a snowballing scandal and a dramatic exit from Grey’s Anatomy, he’s back in the last place you’d expect — Shondaland.
Next month, Knight joins the cast of The Catch as the brother of Mireille Enos’ Alice Vaughan, landing him back in the land that made him a household name. But what has Knight been up to in the years since he left Grey’s Anatomy? Below is but a taste of what the actor has done.
Law & Order: SVU (2011)
Knight took a dark turn as a set of twins on opposite ends of the spectrum — one, a family man, the other, a serial rapist. “One of the twins especially creeped the s— out of me, frankly,” Knight says. “Everyone was lovely on the project, but that was — yuck, what a horrible person that guy was. That was one you want to have a hot shower afterward and just scrub with bleach.”
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The Good Wife (2013)
“That was crazy because we shot that about five blocks away from where I was living at the time in Brooklyn,” says Knight, who calls scheming political operative Jordan Karahalios a “s— stirrer.” Knight also jokes Jordan was likely adopted. “My little weird face, there’s not much that says Greek about that,” he says. Alas, Knight has not been asked to appear on spinoff The Good Fight.
42 (2013)
Playing a real-life character in the Jackie Robinson flick meant researching the world of 1940s baseball to best honor the legacy of Dodgers publicity chief Harold Parrott. “There are some jobs that just make you wake up in the morning and you can’t believe that you’re a part of it; that was one of those,” Knight says.
It’s Only a Play (2015)
Reuniting with Nathan Lane after co-starring in the short-lived CBS sitcom Charlie Lawrence, Knight had to strip down to his skivvies for this Broadway play. “There’s some exposed tuckus in that and not necessarily the most comfortable thing for me. There’s some people who get hired to take off their clothes and it’s not for laughs — I don’t know what that’s like,” Knight says with a chuckle. “You’re not going to hire me to come out of the shower like Eric Dane.”
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11/22/63 (2016)
Hulu’s James Franco-starring time-travel piece about the JFK assassination felt much like a play to Knight, as his character had one long scene they blocked in a single take. But what stuck with him was returning to that fateful location. “We got to shoot on Dealey Plaza, which was a very eerie and emotional experience,” Knight says.
When We Rise (2017)
In another case of playing a real-life figure, Knight has a role in ABC’s upcoming Dustin Lance Black docudrama chronicling the struggle of the modern gay rights movement. “To have a small part of telling that kind of epic story of gay rights, women’s rights, and civil rights all coming together in this one story — I can’t wait to see it,” Knight says, lauding co-star Guy Pearce. “I just admire his work a lot. He’s a strong character and such a good guy. It was great to act with him.”
The Catch (2017)
The Grey’s Anatomy alum morphs into the self-serving brother of Alice Vaughan for his triumphant return to Shondaland. “We were doing our first Broadway shows at the same time,” Knight says of Enos. “I saw her in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and then, of course, through The Killing. It’s nice when you have acting impressions of people, then you get to finally act with them; that made it very exciting for me.”
The Catch returns Thursday, March 9 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC. Knight discusses his debut here.
