Russell Wayne Harvard (born April 16, 1981) is an American actor. He
made his feature film debut in Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be
Blood (2007), playing opposite Daniel Day-Lewis as his adopted grown
son, H.W. Plainview. In the 2010 biopic The Hammer, he portrayed deaf
NCAA championship wrestler and UFC mixed martial arts fighter Matt
Hamill. Harvard also won acclaim Off Broadway in 2012 as Billy, the
deaf son in an intellectual, though dysfunctional, hearing British
family, in Tribes by Nina Raine. For his interpretation, he won a 2012
Theatre World Award for Outstanding Debut Performance and nominations
for Drama League, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Awards for
Outstanding Lead Actor. He played Mr. Wrench in the first and third
season of the television series Fargo.Born in Pasadena, Texas, into a
third-generation deaf family, Harvard is the younger of two deaf sons
of Kay (Youngblood) and Henry Harvard. Both his parents and his
paternal grandmother are also deaf. In the early 1980s, the Harvards
moved to Austin, Texas so that their elder son Renny could enroll at
their alma mater, Texas School for the Deaf (TSD). The family
initially placed Russell (due to his speech capability and residual
hearing) in an oral college for children who learn to lip read
exclusively. Finding he was unhappy there, his parents switched him to
a deaf school education at TSD, which included training in lip reading
and speech therapy in English. Although he is able to hear some sound
with the use of a hearing aid, including speech and music, he
identifies himself Deaf and considers American Sign Language to be his
first language.After graduating from TSD in 1999, Harvard began his
studies at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. At various times
during his college education he took a hiatus to work as a teacher's
assistant for preschoolers at the Alaska State School for the Deaf and
Hard of Hearing in Anchorage, Alaska. (His mother later joined him,
working for the American Red Cross.) While there he contemplated a
career as a teacher of theater, and in 2008 he returned as Artist in
Residence. At Gallaudet he maintained a high GPA and completed his
bachelor's degree in Theatre Arts, graduating in 2008.While still at
Gallaudet, Harvard was prompted by one of his professors, Angela V.
Farrand, to submit a photo and resume to casting agents seeking a deaf
actor for the film There Will Be Blood. He received an audition and
won the part of Adult H.W., for which he had to research and perform a
vintage form of American sign language for the father-son
confrontation scene with Day-Lewis.
made his feature film debut in Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be
Blood (2007), playing opposite Daniel Day-Lewis as his adopted grown
son, H.W. Plainview. In the 2010 biopic The Hammer, he portrayed deaf
NCAA championship wrestler and UFC mixed martial arts fighter Matt
Hamill. Harvard also won acclaim Off Broadway in 2012 as Billy, the
deaf son in an intellectual, though dysfunctional, hearing British
family, in Tribes by Nina Raine. For his interpretation, he won a 2012
Theatre World Award for Outstanding Debut Performance and nominations
for Drama League, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Awards for
Outstanding Lead Actor. He played Mr. Wrench in the first and third
season of the television series Fargo.Born in Pasadena, Texas, into a
third-generation deaf family, Harvard is the younger of two deaf sons
of Kay (Youngblood) and Henry Harvard. Both his parents and his
paternal grandmother are also deaf. In the early 1980s, the Harvards
moved to Austin, Texas so that their elder son Renny could enroll at
their alma mater, Texas School for the Deaf (TSD). The family
initially placed Russell (due to his speech capability and residual
hearing) in an oral college for children who learn to lip read
exclusively. Finding he was unhappy there, his parents switched him to
a deaf school education at TSD, which included training in lip reading
and speech therapy in English. Although he is able to hear some sound
with the use of a hearing aid, including speech and music, he
identifies himself Deaf and considers American Sign Language to be his
first language.After graduating from TSD in 1999, Harvard began his
studies at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. At various times
during his college education he took a hiatus to work as a teacher's
assistant for preschoolers at the Alaska State School for the Deaf and
Hard of Hearing in Anchorage, Alaska. (His mother later joined him,
working for the American Red Cross.) While there he contemplated a
career as a teacher of theater, and in 2008 he returned as Artist in
Residence. At Gallaudet he maintained a high GPA and completed his
bachelor's degree in Theatre Arts, graduating in 2008.While still at
Gallaudet, Harvard was prompted by one of his professors, Angela V.
Farrand, to submit a photo and resume to casting agents seeking a deaf
actor for the film There Will Be Blood. He received an audition and
won the part of Adult H.W., for which he had to research and perform a
vintage form of American sign language for the father-son
confrontation scene with Day-Lewis.
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