Dean Gerard Winters is an American actor. He is known for his role as Ryan O'Reily on the HBO prison drama Oz and had roles in TV series Rescue Me, 30 Rock, Sex and the City and , as well as portraying "Mayhem" in a series of Allstate Insurance commercials. He co-starred in one season of the CBS Network cop drama series Battle Creek and currently has a recurring role as the Vulture on the comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Winters has appeared in two of the Law & Order television series: ', where he was a regular in the first season, and as a guest star in the ' episode "Purgatory |Purgatory". He also made an appearance in Season 2 of the television series Sex And The City as John McFadden. More than ten years after his final appearance on SVU, he again portrayed Detective Brian Cassidy in the 13th-season finale "Rhodium Nights", became a recurring character in the 14th season and, in the 15th season, also became Sergeant Olivia Benson's love interest. He has also made guest appearances on ', Sex and the City, Third Watch, NYPD Blue, ' and as Dennis Duffy in 30 Rock as well as previously having an accompanying role in Rescue Me. He starred in the 1999 romantic comedyUndercover Angel with Yasmine Bleeth and the 2002 direct-to-videohorror filmHellraiser: Hellseeker. He played Tom in PS, I Love You. Winters played Detective Sam Tyler's father in the US version of Life On Mars. He also played Charley Dixon, 's love interest, in . Winters performed stand-up comedy at Catch a Rising Star, The Comic Strip, and the Comedy Cellar alongside notable comedians Jerry Seinfeld, Paul Reiser, and Chris Rock. An HBO comedy special led him to the role he portrayed on OZ, the HBO-produced prison drama. Winters was cast in the ABC drama pilot Happy Town, from the creators of October Road, but was replaced by Steven Weber after shooting the pilot. On June 20, 2010, Winters was introduced as "Mayhem", a recurring character in a new television and radio advertising campaign for Allstate Insurance created by the advertising agency Leo Burnett Chicago. He also played Avi in John Wick. Winters co-starred in one season of the CBS Network cop drama series Battle Creek, playing a small-town police force detective opposite Josh Duhamel, the FBI resident agent assigned to the town. The series was canceled in May 2015. Most recently, he reprised his role on Brooklyn Nine-Nine as The Vulture and had a supporting role as a divorce attorney on the HBO series Divorce. In 2018, he was cast as Mr. Town in the second season of StarzAmerican Gods. In June 2009, Winters contracted a bacterial infection and collapsed upon arrival at his doctor's office. While being transported across Central Park in an ambulance, he went into cardiac arrest for over two minutes. Paramedics were able to revive him and he was hospitalized in intensive care for three weeks. Over the course of the next year, he developed gangrene, requiring the amputation of two toes and half of one thumb, and ten subsequent operations including a skin graft. Winters was away from acting until 2010, when Tina Fey brought him back to 30 Rock, and he started work on the Mayhemtelevision commercial campaign. In 2019, Fey joined Winters in a series of Mayhem commercials.
