Fresno native Christopher Gorham on his TV career, new show ‘Sheriff Country’

If you’ve watched television at all in the past two decades plus, there’s a good chance you’ve seen Christopher Gorham.

His resume is genre-crossing and exhaustive.

There have been one-off spots on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” (the original) “CSI,” “Without a Trace,” “Hot in Cleveland,” “Modern Family,” “NCIS:Los Angeles” and the recent “Matlock” reboot.

That’s not withstanding the guest roles; on “Party of Five,” “Felicity,” “Once Upon a Time,” “Two Broke Girls,” “The Magicians” and “The Lincoln Lawyer” (where he was in every episode of season one).

Then, there are the starring roles; mostly notably as Henry Grubstick on four seasons of “Ugly Betty” and Auggie Anderson on USA’s long-running series “Covert Affairs.” He was also on the WB show “Popular,” UPN’s “Jake 2.0” and the Netflix series “Insatiable.”

Even now, the 51-year-old Fresno native can be seen on two rather popular CBS series; “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” in which he plays Mandy’s ex-boyfriend and boss; and “Sheriff Country,” where Gorham stars opposite Morena Baccarin as a small-town lawyer in Edgewater, California.

“I love TV. I love the pace of TV,” Gorham said during an interview in advance of the mid-season premiere of “Sheriff Country” at 8 p.m. Feb. 27 on CBS (it streams on Paramount+).

Gorham was in Fresno visiting family during a break in the series and met with The Bee at Roger Rocka’s Dinner Theater, where he performed as part of Good Company Player’s Junior Company in the 1980s. The actor talked his career longevity, the future of the television industry and what viewers can expect from the rest of the first season of “Sheriff Country.”

From (junior) Good Company Player to CBS star

To understand Gorham’s success as an actor, you need to understand he had a combination of factors going for him. “One is, I’m good at what I do,” he says.

He’s also irrationally confident.

But there was also a bit of luck to it all.

From an early age, he had a support system for his talent and ambition. There was his family and school (first Nelson Elementary and then Roosevelt School of the Arts) but also Good Company Players, where he crossed paths with other young talents who went on to have success acting careers.

See: Audra McDonald and Sharon Leal.

The amateur theater company, lead by Dan and Laurie Pessano, seems to attract “magical, dedicated, talented people.”

“Wonderfully talented weirdos,” as Gorham says. He includes himself among those ranks, which may be why he makes a point to check in with the Pessanos when he’ in town.

There was a professionalism that was taught to and expected from the junior company and a joy for performing on that was “fertilized” on that dinner theater stage, Gorham says.

“I can’t take credit for that. That’s luck of the draw.”

On the future of television

In talking about his current gig on “Sheriff Country,” Gorham says the show represents his favorite way to make TV.

It’s a bit of a throwback, in that it’s a traditional network series; 20 episodes shot on location and released weekly throughout an extended season. That’s compared to the six episodes done for many streaming series.

It’s the model that really built the modern TV industry, he says, and “it actually supports people having careers.”

Also, “people really like watching TV this way.”

That can be seen in the numbers.

Following its debut in the fall, “Sheriff Country” has grown its audience to some 6.24 million viewers per episode, according to the Hollywood news site Deadline. Counting streaming, the numbers could be as high as 11.3 million. The show has been picked up for a second season.

The popularity of “Sheriff Country” points to a truth about the TV industry, Gorham says. While streaming services have left television makers looking for a new normal, it hasn’t changed the underlying function of the medium.

“The business has changed,” he says.

“What hasn’t changed at all is people’s hunger for storytelling.”

What to expect for the rest of “Sheriff Country” this season?

In “Sheriff Country,” the story is aspirational, Gorham says.

“This is a cop show, but it’s a small town cop show.”

It’s set in a rural California town, a place not unlike Fresno. Or at least the Fresno that Gorham knew growing up. The city was smaller then, he says.

It’s the kind of place everybody knows each other. That’s something people want to relate to and makes it an “aspirational community,” Gorham says, “despite how desperately dangerous Edgewater seems to be.”

To whit, the mid-season premiere picks up on a cliffhanger episode that saw the sheriff’s office under siege of an armed militia and Gorham’s character being shot. It’s a violent return, Gorham says, that sets up of the season, which works to explore how that kind of violence changes people.

Next week’s episode is titled “Aftermath” for a reason.

“Certainly, for my character there is a shift.”

This story was originally published February 27, 2026 at 3:09 PM with the headline "Fresno native Christopher Gorham on his TV career, new show ‘Sheriff Country’."