Paul Reiser (born March 30, 1957) is an American comedian, actor, television personality and writer, author and musician. He is best known for his roles as Michael Taylor in the 1980s sitcom My Two Dads, Paul Buchman in the 1990s TV sitcom Mad About You, Carter Burke in the 1986 film Aliens, and more recently as Doug Getty in the Amazon TV series Red Oaks. He is ranked 77th on Comedy Central's 2004 list of the "100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time".[1] The name of Reiser's production company, Nuance Productions, is inspired by one of his lines in the film Diner (1982), in which his character explains his discomfort with the word "nuance". He currently portrays Sam Owens in the Netflix supernatural-horror series Stranger Things.