William Louis Petersen is an American actor of Danish ancestry. Petersen was born on February 21, 1953 in Evanston, Illinois.

Petersen graduated from Bishop Kelly High School in Boise, Idaho, in 1972. He was accepted to Idaho State University on a football scholarship. Originally intending to boost his grade point average at Idaho State, Petersen took an acting course which changed the direction of his life. He left school, along with his wife, in 1974 and followed a drama professor to Spain where he developed his acting skills as a Shakespearean actor. Petersen went back to Idaho with dreams of being an actor. Unable to hold down a non-acting job, he returned home to Chicago to live with relatives and became active there in theater and earned his Actors' Equity card. He performed with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and was a co-founder of the Remains Theater Ensemble which also included other prominent Chicago actors Gary Cole and Ted Levine.

This acclaimed actor's film career began with a small part in the 1981 film Thief. In 1986 he starred as Will Graham in Manhunter (later to be remade as Red Dragon).

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