Sam Robards

Sam Robards is one of those actors who quietly earns your respect every time he shows up on screen. Born into Hollywood royalty — son of Jason Robards and Lauren Bacall — he could have coasted on the family name, but instead he went to Sarah Lawrence and actually put in the craft work, picking up a Clarence Derwent Award for his stage work and a Tony nomination for his Broadway turn in The Man Who Had All the Luck. Most people know him from American Beauty, where he played the neighbor with the unsettling calm, or from A.I. Artificial Intelligence as the earnest, conflicted father figure. He never became a household name, but that almost feels like a choice — there's a quiet precision to his performances that suits the work over the spotlight, and honestly that's pretty rare in an industry that rewards the loudest voice in the room.

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Name (English)

Sam Robards

Name (Japanese)

サム・ロバーズ

Reading

さむ・ろばーず

Born

December 16, 1961 (age 64)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Sagittarius / Ox

Origin

New York City, New York, United States

Occupation

television actor / film actor / stage actor / film producer / actor

University

Sarah Lawrence College

Awards & achievements

• Clarence Derwent Awards

• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam%20Robards
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B5%E3%83%A0%E3%83%BB%E3%83%AD%E3%83%90%E3%83%BC%E3%82%BA
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1364747

Tags

• New York
• television actor
• film actor
• stage actor

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.