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Jimmy Smits is an accomplished film, theater and television actor. He is an 11-time Emmy Award nominee and won the award in 1990 for his role as Victor Sifuentes in L.A. Law. He is a four-time Golden Globe nominee and won the award in 1996 for his role on NYPD Blue. He is an eight-time nominee of the Screen Actors Guild Award and has been nominated and won a variety of other prestigious awards, including wins in 2005 at the Imagen Foundation Awards, in 1996 at the NCLR Bravo Awards, and a 1999 Humanitas Award for his work on NYPD Blue. Smits is also a five-time ALMA Award nominee and three-time winner (in 1998 and 1999 for NYPD Blue and in 2006 for the The West Wing).

His television credits include L.A. Law, The West Wing, NYPD Blue and the award-winning TV movies The Broken Cord and Lackawanna Blues. Smits' film credits include Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, Running Scared, The Believers, Old Gringo, Switch, Price of Glory, Bless The Child and My Family/Mi Familia, for which he received an IFP Spirit Award nomination. He will next be seen in The Jane Austen Book Club.

His theater credits include the Broadway production of Nilo Cruz's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Anna in the Tropics, The New York Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park presentations of Much Ado About Nothing in 2004 and Twelfth Night in 2002. He has appeared in numerous off-Broadway and regional theater productions. Taking his dedication to the arts to the next level, he is also an active member of the New York Public Theater's Board of Directors. Smits is also a successful producer. El Sendero Productions, his production company, has set up two separate projects with ABC Studios, one a miniseries at ABC and the other a drama on FX.

Over the years, Smits has involved himself in various charitable organizations and has consistently been a strong advocate for education. In 1997, he co-founded the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts (NHFA), along with actors Esai Morales and Sonia Braga and Washington, D.C. attorney Felix Sanchez, to promote Hispanic talent in the performing arts. The organization, which just celebrated its 10th Anniversary, offers graduate scholarships and cash grants at prominent colleges and universities in order to expand career opportunities and increase access for Hispanic artists and professionals while fostering the emergence of new Hispanic talent.

A second-generation American, Smits is a native of Brooklyn, New York, and traces his roots to Puerto Rico and Surinam. During his childhood, his family moved several times. He spent a great deal of time in Puerto Rico where he learned to speak Spanish. He currently lives in Los Angeles.