James Patrick Stuart

James Patrick Stuart (born June 16, 1968) is an American actor, currently portraying Valentin Cassadine on the daytime soap opera General Hospital, for which he received three consecutive Daytime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Early life
Stuart was born to English parents Chad and Jill Gibson Stuart in California. His songwriter father was one-half of the 1960s British Invasion duo Chad & Jeremy; because of this, Stuart spent much of his childhood in recording studios. As a wannabe child actor, he would talk his mother and father into taking him to nighttime tapings of sitcoms such as Happy Days and Mork and Mindy. Acting under the name Patrick Stuart, he was spotted by a talent agent in a local production of A Christmas Carol and landed the role of Dr. Zee in the short-lived TV series Galactica 1980. His parents moved to Laguna Beach, California, where he went to high school. He spent two years in San Francisco State University‘s drama department before dropping out in 1988 to move back to Hollywood, where he studied at Stella Adler's acting school under Arthur Mendoza and Joanne Linville.

Career
In 1989 Stuart was cast in the soap opera All My Children as Will Cortlandt and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actor in 1992. In 1990 he made a brief appearance in the film Pretty Woman as a bellhop. He played Confederate Colonel Edward Porter Alexander in the 1993 film Gettysburg and its 2003 prequel Gods and Generals. In 2009 he was Meryl Streep's would-be plastic surgeon in It's Complicated.

He is known mostly for his work on television, appearing in such shows as Galactica 1980, CSI, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, The Closer, 90210, Still Standing, Reba, Supernatural, Hot in Cleveland, and 2 Broke Girls. In a 1997 episode of Seinfeld, he played Elaine's furniture-designing, "Desperado"-loving boyfriend, Brett. In "The Ski Lodge," a 1998 episode of Frasier, he played Guy, the gay French ski instructor.

He provides the voices of Avalanche in Wolverine and the X-Men, Private the Penguin (replacing Christopher Knights) and Joey the Kangaroo in Nickelodeon's The Penguins of Madagascar, Pvt. MacGregor in Call of Duty 2 and Xigbar/Braig in the Kingdom Hearts video games.

Since July 2016 he has played the role of villain Valentin Cassadine on General Hospital.

He stars in the Disney Channel sitcom The Villains of Valley View, premiering June 3, 2022, as the mad scientist Kraniac.

Personal life
Stuart resides in Los Angeles, California, with his wife, Jocelyn, and their two sons.

His parents were divorced and his father, who died in December 2020, had two subsequent marriages. He has a brother, Andrew, and a half-brother, Beau, as well as several step-brothers and step-sisters.