Adam Scott's Real Name: Adam Paul Scott

Quick answer: Adam Scott's documented full name is Adam Paul Scott. He was born on April 3, 1973, in Santa Cruz, California. He is an actor known for Ben Wyatt on Parks and Recreation and for an Emmy-nominated role as Mark Scout on Severance (Biography.com).

Real name and early life

Biography.com gives his full name as Adam Paul Scott, born April 3, 1973, in Santa Cruz, California. The Library of Congress heading is "Scott, Adam, 1973-." His father, Dougald, was a biology professor, and his mother, Anne, was a special education teacher, the profile says. He attended Harbor High School in Santa Cruz, where he took drama classes, then enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles, graduating in 1993.

Career highlights

His first credited television work came in 1994, including a recurring guest part on Boy Meets World. Over the next decade he divided time between film and television, with movie roles in Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), High Crimes (2002), The Aviator (2004), Monster-in-Law (2005), and Knocked Up (2007), and guest appearances on ER, NYPD Blue, CSI: Miami, Veronica Mars, and Law & Order. A 2007 HBO drama, Tell Me You Love Me, and the 2008 comedy Step Brothers, which Biography.com says grossed more than $128 million worldwide, raised his profile.

He joined Parks and Recreation in its second season, in 2010, as state auditor Ben Wyatt, and remained a primary character through the series' end in 2015. Biography.com says he had first auditioned for the pilot and been turned down, then was invited back after executive producer Michael Schur saw him on the Starz series Party Down. Other films from this period include Our Idiot Brother (2011), The Guilt Trip (2012), and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013). From 2017 he portrayed Ed Mackenzie, the on-screen husband of Reese Witherspoon's character, on HBO's Big Little Lies, a series whose ensemble also included Meryl Streep.

He later starred as Mark Scout in the Apple TV+ series Severance, which premiered in 2022 and brought him Emmy nominations for outstanding lead actor in a drama series and, as a producer, outstanding drama series. A second season began airing in January 2025, Biography.com says, and again brought lead-actor and producing nominations.

Name notes for searchers

Adam Paul Scott is the documented full name; he has been billed as Adam Scott. Searchers looking for either form, or for Ben Wyatt or Mark Scout, are usually aiming at the same person. He is not the Australian golfer of the same name.