Some actors prefer to keep a low profile, avoiding the glamour of talk shows and tabloid headlines, and Christopher Abbott is a perfect example. So, when he turned up on the red carpet at Radio City Music Hall for the 79th Annual Tony Awards, standing beside a visibly pregnant Aubrey Plaza in a black-and-white Chanel striped gown, a lot of people found themselves asking the same question: who is this man, and how did he get here?
From Aspiring Actor in Connecticut to Broadway
Abbott grew up in the Chickahominy neighbourhood of Greenwich, Connecticut, where he juggled a job at a local video store with his passion for acting at Norwalk Community College. Determined to chase his dreams, he later moved to New York and trained at the Herbert Berghof Studio in Greenwich Village, a school with a serious reputation and a long list of notable alums.
In 2011, he did something not many actors do: open on Broadway and appear in a major film release within 12 months. The stage job was a revival of The House of Blue Leaves; the film was Sean Durkin's Martha Marcy May Marlene, in which he played a cult member opposite Elizabeth Olsen in her breakthrough performance.
Christopher Abbott's Movies and TV Shows
Most people first found him through television: he played Charlie Dattolo, the quiet, troubled boyfriend of Marnie, in Lena Dunham's HBO series Girls. He left after two seasons, which raised eyebrows at the time but has since read as a fairly reliable sign of his priorities.
His screen credits since then span a lot of ground. He appeared in Brandon Cronenberg's body-horror film Possessor, the Ryan Gosling-directed space drama First Man (as astronaut David Scott), and Yorgos Lanthimos's Palme d'Or winner Poor Things.
The Hulu miniseries Catch-22 brought him a Golden Globe nomination in 2019 for playing Captain Yossarian, which was not an easy role to carry, considering he had to work alongside veteran actor George Clooney and Kyle Chandler.
Tony Nomination for 'Death of a Salesman'
Fifteen years after his Broadway debut, Abbott is back on the boards, and this time he's Tony-nominated for Best Actor in a Featured Role in a Play for playing Biff Loman in the current revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman at the Winter Garden Theatre.
Abbott had never actually seen Death of a Salesman before taking the role. He has a personal rule of sometimes avoiding plays he might one day perform in, and this was one of them. Producer Scott Rudin and director Joe Mantello approached him, and the decision to say yes was straightforward: 'It's a classic for a reason, and the writing is just so real. But it's also poetic, and it is theatrical and dramatic.'
How Long Have Christopher Abbott and Aubrey Plaza Been Together?
Abbott and Plaza first met on the set of Black Bear in 2020 and played love interests in the 2023 off-Broadway revival of Danny and the Deep Blue Sea. Rumours about their relationship surfaced when they were first spotted together in July 2025 in upstate New York. Plaza sparked controversy for moving on so quickly after her husband, Jeff Baena, passed away in January 2025. The pregnancy news followed in April 2026, and they expect to welcome their child in the autumn.
