Joe Flanigan (born January 5, 1967) is an American television actor best known as Major/Lt. Colonel John Sheppard in Stargate Atlantis.

Flanigan was born Joseph Dunnigan III in Los Angeles, California. His name was changed to Joseph...
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Joe Flanigan (born January 5, 1967) is an American television actor best known as Major/Lt. Colonel John Sheppard in Stargate Atlantis.

Flanigan was born Joseph Dunnigan III in Los Angeles, California. His name was changed to Joseph Flanigan after he was adopted by his stepfather, John Flanigan. He has three brothers and four sisters. When he was six years old, his family moved to a small ranch near Reno, Nevada, although his stepfather objected to his ranch being called a "small" farm. Joe responds, "The trouble is, it is a small farm." However it is a somewhat coy mischaracterization of his stepfather who was a vice president at the family business, Anheuser Busch.

From the age of 14 Flanigan attended a boarding school in Ojai, California where he appeared in the school's production of A Streetcar Named Desire. He later earned a history degree at the University of Colorado where he was a world-class skier and appeared in Coriolanus. He took acting to overcome his shyness and never planned on an acting career. He spent a year studying at the Sorbonne in Paris as part of the Junior Year Abroad program and is fluent enough to joke around with French reporters in French.