Nerdy, intellectual, usually sympathetic, "square" and "small town" are the types of characters that character actor Rod Knoll plays in both dramas and comedies. He grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania and is of German ("Pennsylvania Dutch") descent.He got the acting bug starting very early in elementary school when he got a laugh after saying the line "Thar's gold in them thar hills!" in a school play. Rod did every school play he could, playing the role of "Gandalf" in "The Hobbit" at age 13 along with more old men roles in high school productions of "The Diary of Anne Frank", "No, No, Nanette", "Brigadoon" and "South Pacific". After all these roles, Rod knew of course that he was destined to be a character actor.When Rod made his professional theater debut very early in his career, the parts he got were younger but still character roles. Most notably, while still in his early 20's, Rod received critical acclaim when he garnered rave reviews for playing the comedic leading role of "Eugene Jerome", the alter-ego of Neil Simon, in several stage productions of Simon's autobiographical "Brighton Beach" and "Biloxi Blues" plays.Rod's first TV role was on NBC's The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990) playing a preppy friend of "Carlton" and member of the ultra-preppy high school glee club called the "Alligaroos" at the Bel-Air Academy. In his third decade in the business, things have come full circle for Rod now that he is starting to play older character roles in his professional career, after his recent role as the nerdy, helpless pet store owner on the Netflix/Marvel series Daredevil (2015) and his role as quirky "Arthur Jolene", the nerdy, by-the-book juror on an episode of the CBS series Bull (2016) as well as other similar roles in recent indie projects.Rod's training in acting has been diverse and long-term. Rod spent many years studying various techniques and approaches to acting under many acting teachers, starting with private and group acting classes way back while he was still in high school. Rod then moved to New York City at the age of 18 right after high school to study acting at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Through NYU, Rod spent several years starting just before the mid 1980s studying with several first generation Michael Chekhov and Strasberg teachers who by that time were teaching a wide variety of acting techniques.Rod is based in New York City. Show less «