Peter Weller (born June 24, 1947) is an American film and stage actor, television director, and art historian. He has appeared in more than 70 films and television series, including RoboCop (1987) and its sequel RoboCop 2 (1990), in which he played the title character; The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984); and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). He appeared in such films as Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite (1995), the Oliver Stone-produced The New Age (1994), and David Cronenberg's adaptation of William Burroughs's novel Naked Lunch (1991). In addition to a Saturn Award nomination for his RoboCop role, he received an Academy Award nomination for his 1993 short Partners, in which he also acted. In television, he hosted the program Engineering an Empire on the History Channel from 2005 to 2007. He played Christopher Henderson in the fifth season of 24, Stan Liddy in the fifth season of the Showtime original series Dexter, and Charles "Charlie" Barosky in 11 episodes in the sixth season of Sons of Anarchy. From 2012 to 2017, he was involved in the A&E (now Netflix) series Longmire as a director and actor. In 2017, he appeared on The Last Ship as Dr. Paul Vellek. He holds a Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance Art History from UCLA. Early life Weller was born June 24, 1947, in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, the son of Dorothy Jean ( Davidson; 1924–2002), a homemaker, and Frederick Bradford Weller (1922–1986), a lawyer, federal judge, and career helicopter pilot for the United States Army. Weller had a "middle-class Catholic" upbringing and is of English, German, French and Irish descent. As a result of his father's army work, Weller spent many years abroad during his childhood. His family lived in West Germany for several years before eventually moving to Texas, where he attended Alamo Heights High School in San Antonio, graduating in 1965. Education While enrolled at North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas), he played trumpet in one of the campus bands. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre]l in 1969, and began his acting career after attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (Class of 1972). In 2004, Weller completed a Master of Arts degree in Roman and Renaissance Art at Syracuse University, and occasionally taught courses in ancient history at the university. In 2007, he began a Ph.D. at UCLA, in Italian Renaissance