Daniel Bernard Sweeney (born November 14, 1961) is an American stage, film and television actor.
Sweeney was born in Shoreham, New York to a municipal worker mother and an educator father. After graduating from Shoreham-Wading River High School, he attended both Tulane and New York University. Though he had trouble getting sizeable roles in student productions, upon his graduation he was immediately cast in the Broadway revival of The Caine Mutiny Court Martial.
Sweeney went on to guest star on such television series as The Edge of Night and Spenser: For Hire before entering films, where he scored with the critics for his portrayal of an idealistic, gung-ho Vietnam enlistee in Francis Ford Coppola's Gardens of Stone (1987). While he has accrued several assignments (including the starring role of a nasty hockey player in The Cutting Edge (1992)), Sweeney is perhaps best remembered for his even-keel portrayal of the tragic Shoeless Joe Jackson in Eight Men Out (1988). (If he looked like a natural on the ballfield, it was because Sweeney had once played minor baseball with the Kenosha Twins, hanging up his spikes after a knee injury.)
Sweeney also starred in films such as Memphis Belle (1990), Blue Desert (1991), Fire in the Sky (1993), and Hardball (2001). In addition to his film roles, he continues to work on television. He played Dish Boggett in the miniseries Lonesome Dove (1989) and in 1996 starred in the short-lived Fox series Strange Luck in which he played an amnesiac freelance photographer with strange powers that results from being the sole survivor of an airplane disaster; he later co-starred in another short-lived series, the science fiction offering Harsh Realm. Sweeney still appears in theatrical productions.
Sweeney recently guest-starred on House playing an ex-bandmate of Dr. Gregory House's, named Crandall. His daughter is brought to Dr. House after suffering from hallucinations about her experiences during Hurricane Katrina on top of other issues. He is also the voice-over artist for Fox Sports Net's Beyond the Glory and guest-starred on Jericho playing Goetz, a mercenary employee of security company Ravenwood Solutions.
