Crudup was born in Manhasset, New York. His parents, Georgann and Thomas Henry Crudup III, divorced during his childhood, and later remarried, before divorcing a second time. On his father's side, he is a descendant of Congressman Josiah Crudup of North Carolina. His maternal grandfather was William Cotter "Billy" Gaither, Jr., a well-known Florida trial lawyer, and his maternal grandmother later remarried to Episcopal bishop James Duncan. Born second of three boys, Crudup has two brothers: Tommy, an executive producer, and Brooks, also a producer. He left New York with his family when he was about eight years old, first living in Texas, then in Florida. He graduated from Saint Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1986. Crudup attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received an undergraduate degree, and he continued his passion for acting with the undergraduate acting company, LAB! Theatre. He also acted for UNC-STV's most popular show, General College. He was a member of the Beta Chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon. He then studied at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts graduate acting program, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1994.
Career
Film acting
Crudup began acting in films such as 1996's Sleepers, 1997's Inventing the Abbotts, and 1998's Without Limits, where he played the role of running legend and Olympian Steve Prefontaine. His first role in an animated feature was in 1999's English release of Princess Mononoke, in which he starred as Ashitaka. He then played Russell Hammond, the lead guitar player of the fictional band Stillwater in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous. In 2006's The Good Shepherd, he played British spy Arch Cummings, a stand-in for Kim Philby. The same year, he played a supporting role in . In 2007, he played the leading role of Henry Roth in the film Dedication. Crudup completed filming Watchmen with director Zack Snyder in Vancouver, British Columbia. He portrayed the superhero Doctor Manhattan. He portrayed former U.S. Secretary of the TreasuryTimothy Geithner in a TV film about 2008's financial crisis, Too Big to Fail.
From 1998 to 2005, Crudup was the narrator for the U.S. television ad campaign "Priceless" for MasterCard. In the ads, the narrator lists the prices of two goods or services, then lists some third, intangible benefit gained from those purchases and concludes, "priceless". He said in 2005 that appearing in the ads "changed my life", in that they gave him the financial freedom to pursue the acting work that he wanted to do. He appeared as Zartan in the 2009 parody video The Ballad of G.I. Joe on the website Funny or Die.
Personal life
From 1996 to November 2003, Crudup dated actress Mary-Louise Parker. Parker was seven months pregnant when Crudup ended their relationship and began dating actress Claire Danes. Crudup and Danes ended their relationship in 2006. Crudup has been in a relationship with actress Naomi Watts since 2017.
