Theatre Kinney has been involved in theatre since 1974, when he,
Gary Sinise and
Jeff Perry founded the
Steppenwolf Theatre Company. In describing the company's radical usage of cinematic techniques such as accelerated time, substantial soundtracks and the rough equivalent of
dissolves and
bleeds, Kinney had said:We’ve always been more influenced by cinematic techniques than stage techniques because stage techniques have been around long enough to become really boring and cliché. Our earliest influences were the films of
Cassavetes, not any plays we’d seen. We always tend to score our pieces and we always tend to manipulate the audience to look where we want them to look and the way to do that is to get very tight on certain situations.He has directed several plays and performed in several. He performed in the Steppenwolf Theatre Company production of
Orphans which premiered Off-Broadway at the Westside Theatre with
John Mahoney and
Kevin Anderson to critical acclaim. 1985, he performed in the
Drama Desk Award–winning play
Balm in Gilead by
Lanford Wilson. In 1996, Kinney played Tilden in the
Sam Shepard play
Buried Child directed by Gary Sinise in
New York City. During a performance of
Buried Child, Kinney had a "terrible, horrible, screaming panic attack" and stayed offstage for several years, only returning in 2002 in a performance with
Kurt Elling called
Petty Delusions and Grand Obsessions. He directed
Richard Greenberg's play
Well Appointed Room in 2006 and
Neil LaBute's
reasons to be pretty in 2009. In 2010, he directed another Lanford Wilson play,
Fifth of July, for Bay Street Theatre (July) and for the
Williamstown Theatre Festival (August). In October–November 2012, Kinney directed
Checkers, a new play by
Douglas McGrath at the Vineyard Theatre, New York City. He directed
Lyle Kessler's new play
Collision in January 2013 at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater.
Film and television Besides his theatrical work, Kinney has done much acting, mainly for television, starting in 1986 with an appearance in
Miami Vice. In 1987, he starred as Pastor Tom Bird in the
CBS miniseries
Murder Ordained opposite
JoBeth Williams. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of the idealistic unit manager
Tim McManus on
HBO's prison drama
Oz. In 1995, Kinney co-starred with
Tommy Lee Jones in an adaptation of an
Elmer Kelton western novel titled
The Good Old Boys. Tommy Lee Jones directed this made-for-TV movie which also co-starred
Sissy Spacek,
Matt Damon,
Sam Shepard,
Wilford Brimley and retired Texas Ranger
H. Joaquin Jackson. Kinney also directed two episodes of
Oz, "Cruel and Unusual Punishments" in 1999 and "Wheel of Fortune" in 2002. Explaining the experience, he said, "it was great training for shooting on a limited budget, on a time crunch." His film work includes a role in the 1988 film
Miles from Home, which featured many cast members of Steppenwolf and was directed by Sinise. In 1995, he played mayoral candidate Todd Carter in
Carl Franklin's film
Devil in a Blue Dress. In 1996, Kinney played a comedic role as Uncle David in the
coming-of-age drama
Fly Away Home. In 1999, Kinney played the lead in the
indie film The Young Girl and the Monsoon, about Hank, a 39-year-old photojournalist dealing with a demanding job and a growing daughter. In 2001, he played the estranged father of the protagonist, Sara Johnson (
Julia Stiles), in the film
Save the Last Dance. In 2006, Kinney directed an 18-minute film called
Kubuku Rides (This Is It), which portrays the effects of drug addiction of a mother as seen by her young son. The film is based on the short story by
Larry Brown. It is the first film produced by Steppenwolf Films. In 2008, he directed
Diminished Capacity, a feature film with a big Steppenwolf presence, based on the Sherwood Kiraly novel of that name. For television, in 2008, Kinney was Deputy Attorney General Zach Williams in ''
Canterbury's Law, a short-lived Fox series. In 2009, he played Sergeant Harvey Brown in the ABC series The Unusuals, and in the same year, he had a recurring role as Special Agent Sam Bosco on the hit CBS series The Mentalist''. 2010 saw a pilot for a CBS drama called
The Line, starring
Dylan Walsh as
ATF Agent Donovan with Kinney as a complex criminal, Alex Gunderson, that Donovan is hunting. The series was to be based on a novel by
Robert Gregory Browne called
Kiss Her Goodbye. (Browne said that the show was tentatively called
ATF.) In 2011 Kinney had a recurring role in the North American adaptation of
Being Human as Heggemann, an 1,100-year-old Dutch vampire. In April 2012 he starred in the
CBS police procedural drama
NYC 22 as Field Training Officer Daniel "Yoda" Dean. However, after four episodes
NYC 22 was axed. Kinney also guest starred as Salvatore Amato, a member of a Chicago crime family, in the new Fox drama
The Mob Doctor premiering in September 2012. Kinney was cast as a series regular on ABC drama series
Black Box opposite
Kelly Reilly and
Vanessa Redgrave, set to air on ABC in 2014. From 2016 to 2023, Kinney has played Hall, a recurring character in the TV series
Billions. In 2019, Terry was cast in the
Shonda Rhimes mini-series
Inventing Anna alongside
Julia Garner,
Laverne Cox, and
Anna Chlumsky. The series, which depicts Instagram-famous scam artist
Anna Sorokin, premiered on
Netflix in 2022. ==Personal life==