Acting
Mar 26, 1968
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Benjamin Koldyke
Acting
Biography
Benjamin Koldyke (born March 27, 1968) is an American actor. He is best known for playing Don Frank on How I Met Your Mother (2009–2010), Lee Standish in Work It (2012), and Greg Gibbon on Gortimer Gibbon's Life On Normal Street (2014–2016). Koldyke was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in nearby Kenilworth. His father, Martin J. "Mike" Koldyke, is a former investment banker who founded Frontenac Company in Chicago and is a life trustee of Northwestern University; through his mother, Patricia Blunt Koldyke, he is a member of the family that controls Laird Norton Company, an investment company with roots in the timber industry of the Pacific Northwest. After graduating from high school, he did a post-graduate year at Choate Rosemary Hall. He graduated in 1991 from Dartmouth College, where he earned a bachelor's degree in English and was a quarterback for the football team. Koldyke worked as a high school English teacher and football coach in Chicago. His acting career received a jump start after a chance encounter with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia creator-star, Rob McElhenney. Regulars at the same Venice cafe, he covered Rob's tab with a note that said he "thought his show was fantastic," and this exchange led to Koldyke's first TV pilot, Boldly Going Nowhere for Fox, a few years later. After Boldly was not picked up, Koldyke went on to recur as Dale Tomasson in the HBO series Big Love and as Don Frank in How I Met Your Mother for CBS. n 2012, Koldyke starred as the lead character in the short-lived ABC comedy series Work It and later guest starred in HBO's The Newsroom 2013 saw him star in another ABC sitcom, Back in the Game, opposite James Caan and Maggie Lawson. He had a significant arc on Showtime's Masters of Sex as teacher and football coach Paul Edley, and played male chauvinist Brent throughout the final season of The Good Place. In 2021 he had a recurring role on season 1 of Peacock sitcom Rutherford Falls Koldyke was seen on the big screen in 2016 in a supporting role for Disney's The Finest Hours alongside Chris Pine, Casey Affleck, Eric Bana, and Ben Foster.
Feature Films (7)
Ben and Sydney set out to have the perfect wedding. They just never planned on it being by the side of the road. A film about the journey to happily-ever-after and the detours along the way, SAY I DO will leave you asking the most important questions about love and tying the knot.
Say I Do
In Martha's Vineyard, Mass., conjoined twins Walt and Bob Tenor make the best of their handicap by being the fastest grill cooks in town. While outgoing Walt hopes to one day become a famous actor, shy Bob prefers to stay out of the spotlight. When a fading Hollywood actress, Cher, decides to get her show "Honey and the Beaze" cancelled, she hires Walt -- and his brotherly appendage -- as her costars. But their addition surprisingly achieves the opposite.
Stuck on You
The Coast Guard makes a daring rescue attempt off the coast of Cape Cod after a pair of oil tankers are destroyed during a blizzard in 1952.
The Finest Hours
The story of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962—the nuclear standoff with the USSR sparked by the discovery by the Americans of missile bases established on the Soviet-allied island of Cuba.
Thirteen Days
A comedy-drama about best friends - one a straight woman, Abbie, the other a gay man, Robert - who decide to have a child together. Five years later, Abbie falls in love with a straight man and wants to move away with her and Robert's little boy Sam, and a nasty custody battle ensues.
The Next Best Thing
Television & Series (19)
A father recounts to his children - through a series of flashbacks - the journey he and his four best friends took leading up to him meeting their mother.
How I Met Your Mother
A lighthearted romantic comedy about post-collegiate life, love and career in New York City.
Jack & Jill
The story of Bill Henrickson and his life in suburban Salt Lake City, balancing the needs of his three wives -- Barb, Nicki and Margene-- their seven kids, three new houses and the opening of his newest hardware store. When disturbing news arrives about Bill's father, he is forced to reconnect with his polygamist parents who live on a fundamentalist compound in rural Utah.
Big Love
Boldly Going Nowhere was a proposed American television show for Fox. Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton, and Charlie Day, the producers and stars of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, created the show along with their Always Sunny writers' assistant Adam Stein. While they did not plan to star in the show, they were the executive producers.
Boldly Going Nowhere
Two unrepentant guy's guys who, unable to find work, dress as women to get jobs as pharmaceutical reps. Not only do they pull it off, but they might just learn to be better men in the process.
