---
name: "Charlie Barnett"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/charlie-barnett"
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "4 February 1988"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
average_as: "actor"
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-17T13:50:38.552707+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Charlie Barnett

Actor. Born 4 February 1988 in Sarasota, Florida, USA.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 4 February 1988, Sarasota, Florida, USA
- **Active:** 2019–present
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Barnett_(actor), https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16201004, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1854211/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/987035

## Coming up

- *Line of Fire* (2026-09-21) — [page](https://film.one/tv/line-of-fire.md)
- *Midnight Drop* (2026-09-26)

## Streaming the US now

- **Netflix:** [*Russian Doll*](https://film.one/tv/russian-doll.md) (83)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Charlie Barnett

> Charlie Barnett plays tidy, frightened men, and he plays them so that the tidiness is the fright. In *Russian Doll* he gave Natasha Lyonne something solid to shout at, and the series was sharper for every scene they shared.

Charlie Barnett's Alan Zaveri, in *Russian Doll* (2019), keeps his shoulders up round his ears and his flat ordered to the inch. He does not fidget. He holds still, like a man who has decided that if he does not move nothing can go wrong. It goes wrong anyway, and the series gets both its jokes and its sadness from watching him find that out. Barnett put it plainly himself: "These tics that Alan has, he doesn't want to show people his thing. He's been working his whole life to hide that part of himself."

He came to it by the network route. Three seasons as Peter Mills on *Chicago Fire* (2012–2015) put him on television, and a run of series regulars followed: *Valor* (2017), *Tales of the City* (2019) as Ben Marshall, *You* (2019), *Ordinary Joe* (2021–2022). We have not reviewed those and will not pretend to a view of them, but the parts share a shape. He is cast, again and again, as the orderly one in the ensemble, the man whose job is to keep the story from tipping over.

*Russian Doll* is where that habit became interesting, because Lyonne is anything but orderly and the writers made the collision the point. Alan arrives a third of the way in and a one-woman show becomes a double act. Lyonne is mess and noise; Barnett is the tidy man whose night is going as badly as hers, and their arguments about whose fault the universe is are the best scenes in the series. We had expected him to be the straight man, there to react. Instead we found we were watching him, because Barnett lets the panic reach only his eyes while everything else stays exactly where he put it, and there is something unsettling about a man that controlled being that frightened. Lyonne needs a wall to bounce off; he is a good wall, and a wall that occasionally cracks.

The reservation is not about the acting. It is that the series around him have a habit of being short-lived, *Valor* among them, so he has more often been the reliable part of something that did not last than the reliable part of something that did. Reliability is a quiet gift and television does not always reward it.

*The Acolyte* (2024), with Barnett as Yord Fandar, took him into franchise television, and *Line of Fire* (2026) follows. We hope somebody there has noticed what Lyonne noticed. He is best when the order is under pressure, and a franchise that only wants him steady will be wasting the interesting half of him.

## Biography

Charlie Barnett is an American actor. He was born on 4 February 1988 in Sarasota, Florida, and graduated from the Juilliard School drama programme in 2010.

He is known for his role as firefighter Peter Mills in the NBC series *Chicago Fire* (2012–2015) and its spin-off *Chicago P.D.* He has also appeared as Alan Zaveri in the Netflix series *Russian Doll* (2019–2022), Gabe Miranda in *You* (2019), Ben Marshall in *Tales of the City* (2019), and Yord Fandar in *The Acolyte* (2024). Barnett is set to star as Jack in the 2026 series *Line of Fire*.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *Russian Doll* (2019), Fi1m 83, as Alan Zaveri — [page](https://film.one/tv/russian-doll.md)

## Complete filmography (33)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Midnight Drop* (2026), Acting
- *Line of Fire* (2026), series, Acting — coming soon, [page](https://film.one/tv/line-of-fire.md)
- *Dreams in Nightmares* (2026), as Reece
- *Stuart Fails to Save the Universe* (2026), series, as Simpa
- *Imposters* (2026), as Paul
- *Bookends* (2026), as Dr. Daniel Green
- *Threshold* (2024), Acting
- *The Acolyte* (2024), series, as Yord Fandar
- *Last Weekend* (2023), as Ethan, Executive Producer
- *Dance Dads* (2022), as Chris
- *We Are Gathered Here Today* (2022), as Max Stone
- *Wild Game* (2021), as Banjo
- *Ordinary Joe* (2021), series, as Eric Payne
- *The Stand In* (2020), as Simon
- *Thirst* (2020), as Ronald
- *Tales of the City* (2019), series, as Ben Marshall
- *Special* (2019), series, Acting
- *Russian Doll* (2019), series, as Alan Zaveri — Fi1m 83, [page](https://film.one/tv/russian-doll.md)
- *You* (2018), series, as Gabe
- *Valor* (2017), series, as Ian Porter
- *Apple of My Eye* (2017), as Dr.  Copeland
- *Mary + Jane* (2016), series, as Ethan
- *Secrets and Lies* (2015), series, as Patrick Warner
- *Chicago P.D.* (2014), series, as Peter Mills
- *The Happy Sad* (2013), as Aaron
- *Orange Is the New Black* (2013), series, as Wes Driscoll — Fi1m 79, [page](https://film.one/tv/orange-is-the-new-black.md)
- *Arrow* (2012), series, as John 'JJ' Diggle, Jr.
- *Chicago Fire* (2012), series, as Peter Mills
- *Gayby* (2012), as Daniel
- *Men in Black 3* (2012), as Air Force MP #2
- *Private Romeo* (2011), as Ken Lee
- *Law & Order: Criminal Intent* (2001), series, as Sam Harris
- *Law & Order: Special Victims Unit* (1999), series, as Chuck Mills

## Gallery

- ![Charlie Barnett](https://film.one/media/person/94530/gallery-746c87d82565.jpg) Charlie Barnett — Image via TMDB
- ![Charlie Barnett](https://film.one/media/person/94530/gallery-89ae8bd03db3.jpg) Charlie Barnett — Image via TMDB

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/charlie-barnett