Acting Yulin made his New York debut in 1963 in ''Next Time I'll Sing to You
by James Saunders and continued to work frequently in theater throughout his career. His Broadway debut came in the 1980s Watch on the Rhine. He returned to Broadway multiple times in productions of The Visit, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Price, and Hedda Gabler. In 2010, he played Willy Loman in Death of A Salesman'' at the
Gate Theatre in
Dublin,
Ireland. His first film role was his portrayal of
Wyatt Earp in
Doc (1971), starring
Stacy Keach as
Doc Holliday. He appeared in the
Brian De Palma film
Scarface (1983) as corrupt cop Mel Bernstein. In 1989, he played the role of Judge Stephen Wexler in
Ghostbusters II. He portrayed a corrupt national security advisor in the 1994
Harrison Ford thriller
Clear and Present Danger. In 1997, he played the role of George Grierson in
Bean. He appeared as Leon Friedman, a lawyer of
Rubin Carter, in the 1999 film,
The Hurricane. In 2001, he portrayed
Secret Service Agent Sterling in
Rush Hour 2. Film critic Jim Emerson once quipped that Yulin "should be in every movie ever made". On television, Yulin appeared in
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the episode "
Duet". During the second season of the television series
24, he played the
Director of the National Security Agency, Roger Stanton. He was nominated for a 1996
Emmy Award for his portrayal of crime boss Jerome Belasco in the sitcom
Frasier. In the series
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, he played
Quentin Travers, head of the
Watchers' Council. Yulin also appeared in Season 3 of
Entourage in the episode "
Return of the King" as studio head Arthur Gadoff. In 2009, he performed in
The People Speak, a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian
Howard Zinn's ''
A People's History of the United States. In 2010 he appeared in the AMC series Rubicon. In 2017 to 2018 he appeared in 12 episodes of Ozark''. At the time of his death, Yulin had been cast in the
MGM+ comedy series
American Classic in the role of Linus; he died days before he was scheduled to begin filming his scenes.
Beyond acting Yulin won the Lucille Lortel Award for directing
The Trip to Bountiful at the Signature Theatre in New York with
Lois Smith. He directed and taught in
New York City: at
Juilliard for eight years; at
Columbia University's The Graduate School of the Arts; and at
HB Studio. ==Personal life and death==