Prior to that, Dennehy was last seen on Broadway in Brian Friel’s Translations. He recreated the role of Willy Loman from the 1998 production of Death of a Salesman at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Also at the Goodman he appeared in leading roles in Robert Falls’ productions of Long Days Journey Into Night (2002), A Touch of the Poet (1996), The Iceman Cometh (1990) and Galileo (1986). He and Falls collaborated again in 1992 for a remounting of The Iceman Cometh at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Additional theatre credits include Peter Brook’s 1998 production of The Cherry Orchard at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Majestic Theatre, the Wisdom Bridge Theatre production of Rat in the Skull, and Says I, Says He at the Mark Taper Forum and the Phoenix Theatre in New York. Recently, Dennehy performed alongside Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks in Paul Newman’s The World of Nick Adams at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles.

Dennehy has also starred in numerous television movies, most recently for CBS, The Crooked E (about the Enron debacle), and he portrays Fred Silverman in the NBC movie Behind the Scenes. Other performances include controversial college basketball coach Bobby Knight in the ESPN original movie A Season on the Brink; and the Showtime film The Warden of Red Rock, which he rewrote, executive produced and starred in opposite James Caan. Dennehy has also appeared in the John Sacret Young film Sirens; Shadow of a Doubt for NBC (which he also wrote and directed); the CBS miniseries Fail Safe; the Emmy-winning miniseries Day One; and four Jack Reed NBC television films, for which he served as director, co-writer and executive producer as well as star.

Before his most recent nomination for Death of a Salesman, Dennehy was nominated for an Emmy on four separate occasions for his work in the miniseries Burden of Proof, To Catch a Killer (The John Wayne Gacy story), Murder in the Heartland and A Killing in a Small Town. Dennehy was nominated for a Cable Ace Award for his work in HBO’s Perfect Witness but instead won the award for his performance in the TNT movie Foreign Affairs.

Dennehy is perhaps best known for his work in feature films, which started in the 1978 Michael Ritchie film Semi-Tough. Since that first film Dennehy has appeared in dozens of films including 10, Rambo: First Blood, Gorky Park, Never Cry Wolf, Twice in a Lifetime, Cocoon, Silverado, F/X, Legal Eagles, Best Seller, Presumed Innocent, Tommy Boy, Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet and Peter Greenaway’s The Belly of an Architect, for which he received the Chicago Film Festival Award for Best Actor.