Bill Pullman

Bill Pullman is 82 years old as of 3 November 2026. He was born on 17 December 1953 in Hornell, New York, and turns 83 in December [1]. Most viewers know him as President Thomas Whitmore in Independence Day, but his résumé runs from a 1987 space parody to a West End play, a Netflix series in 2026 and a sequel due in 2027.

Early life and the road to acting

Pullman was born in Hornell, New York [1]. A 2017 profile notes that as a boy he worked on farms in upstate New York [7]. That detail explains something about the adult: he now runs a ranch in Montana and, with his wife Tamara, co-founded a community orchard in Los Angeles [7].

His first career was in the classroom, not in front of a camera. A 1995 radio listing says he taught drama at the University of Montana and became a department head by the age of 27 [9]. Montana State University, which gave him an honorary doctorate, describes him as a Hollywood actor "who started his career" at that school [8]. The two sources name different Montana universities, so this page only says that his early working life was spent teaching in Montana. We do not have a primary source for his degrees, and we leave them out.

The break: from Ruthless People to Spaceballs

The same 1995 listing says Pullman made his acting debut in Ruthless People after the teaching years [9]. The role that made him recognisable followed soon after. In Spaceballs (1987) he played Lone Starr, a Han Solo-like hero, in the space comedy [1] [3]. In a later interview he said the space scenes in Spaceballs and Independence Day now look clichéd [12].

Through the early 1990s he built a reputation as the likeable second lead. He was in Newsies, which he also discussed in an interview [12]. By 1995 he had appeared in Casper, While You Were Sleeping and The Last Seduction, three very different films in one year [9]. In Casper he played Dr. Harvey [1].

Independence Day and the 1990s

In 1996 Pullman played President Thomas J. Whitmore in Independence Day, next to Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum and Judd Hirsch [1] [10]. He has called the film's success a surprise: "It was really a surprise and it was a thing that meant a lot to people" [10]. He also pointed out why the part was unusual: "at that time there had never really been a heroic lead character that was a President of The United States" [10]. On the film's appeal he was dry about it: "Fortunately, people like seeing the White House blown up" [10].

The part did not trap him. In 1997 he played Fred Madison in David Lynch's Lost Highway [1]. In a 1997 Radio New Zealand interview he described how much freedom Lynch gave actors with their scripts, and compared the film's subplots to Oedipus Rex [11]. The same interview mentions his work with the German director Wim Wenders on The End of Violence, made after Lost Highway [11]. In 1999 he starred as Jack Wells in Lake Placid [1].

Television and the stage

Pullman returned to the presidency on television in 1600 Penn, an NBC comedy, where he was a series regular [5]. He picked up the role again in 2016, reprising Whitmore in Independence Day: Resurgence, about twenty years after the original [4] [1].

The biggest television part of his later career was Detective Harry Ambrose in The Sinner, which ran from 2017 to 2021 [1]. TVLine reported his casting as a series regular opposite Jessica Biel's character Cora Tanner, a housewife who commits a violent crime without knowing why [5]. In a 2020 interview, when the show was in its third season, he said he had never before led a television series [10]. He added: "It's unbelievable at my stage of the game that I get to work with so many good actors" [10]. In 2014 he also appeared in The Equalizer as Brian Plummer [1].

Theatre has stayed part of the mix. In summer 2022 he played Daniel, a tyrannical father dying of emphysema, in the world premiere of Theresa Rebeck's Mad House at the Ambassadors Theatre in London, opposite David Harbour, directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel [13] [14]. The run lasted until 4 September 2022 [13].

Best-known work

Year	Title	Role
1987	Spaceballs	Lone Starr [1]
1995	Casper	Dr. Harvey [1]
1996	Independence Day	President Thomas J. Whitmore [1]
1997	Lost Highway	Fred Madison [1]
1999	Lake Placid	Jack Wells [1]
2014	The Equalizer	Brian Plummer [1]
2016	Independence Day: Resurgence	President Whitmore [1]
2017-2021	The Sinner (TV)	Harry Ambrose [1]
2023	Murdaugh Murders: The Movie (TV)	Alex Murdaugh [15]
2026	The Cherry Orchard (stage)	Gaev [2]
2027	Spaceballs: The New One	Lone Starr [3]

Awards and honours

The USA Network release for the fourth-season renewal of The Sinner lists a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Pullman, in the category Male Actor in a Miniseries or TV Movie, for the show's second season [6]. The same release lists a Critics' Choice nomination for his co-star Carrie Coon, not for him [6]. We found no major award win in the sources we checked.

Outside the industry, Montana State University announced that it would give him an honorary doctorate at its spring commencement on 5 May 2018 [8].

Family and public life

Pullman is married to Tamara, and the couple have two sons, Jack and Lewis, who both attended Warren Wilson College [7]. Jack earned an art degree, and Lewis earned a social work degree and performed in college theatre [7]. Lewis is also an actor and appeared in one of his father's films [7]. In 2011 Bill and Tamara founded Hollywood Orchard, a nonprofit community orchard in Beachwood Canyon in Los Angeles [7]. In 2017 he gave the commencement address at Warren Wilson College, whose president called him "a deep thinker and an agriculturist" [7].

Net worth figures circulate online, but no reliable outlet in the sources we reviewed gives a dated net worth estimate, so we do not print one.

What he is doing now

Pullman's recent work is busy. In 2023 he played Alex Murdaugh in Murdaugh Murders: The Movie, which Lifetime called its 500th original movie and aired on 14 and 15 October [15]. In 2026 he plays Jack, one of six lead roles in the Netflix supernatural series The Boroughs, which the platform's metadata lists as added on 21 May 2026 [4].

On stage, he joins the Royal Shakespeare Company as Gaev in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, from 10 July to 29 August 2026, alongside Kenneth Branagh and Helen Hunt [2]. Next year he returns as Lone Starr in Spaceballs: The New One, due in 2027, where his son Lewis plays Starburst, the son of Lone Starr and Princess Vespa [3]. Rick Moranis, Mel Brooks and Daphne Zuniga are also back [3].