Multi-hyphenate talent Mike Binder made it his business to understand the inner mechanics of people. A comedian and actor who became a writer and director of film and television, Binder initially rose through the Hollywood ranks on small studio films, before his profile went public with HBO’s “The Mind if the Married Man” (2001-02). The career jump into leading man and series creator accommodated his loftier ideas in dramatic films such as “The Upside of Anger” (2004) and “Reign Over Me” (2007).

Binder was born in 1958 and raised in Detroit, MI where he was sandwiched in between an older