Background and career
Nicholas Brendon Schultz (April 12, 1971 – March 20, 2026) was an American actor, artist, and writer. He was best known for playing Xander Harris in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) and Kevin Lynch in Criminal Minds (2007–2014). Brendon continued to work steadily as an actor, with recurring roles on television and starring roles in independent films such as Coherence and Big Gay Love (both 2013). He also pursued visual art, exhibiting and selling his paintings and photography. Brendon struggled for many years with alcoholism and faced a series of legal issues, including multiple arrests and convictions for vandalism, theft, and domestic violence. He died in his sleep due to natural causes at age 54.
Nicholas Brendon Schultz was born on April 12, 1971, in Los Angeles, California. He was an identical twin. His mother was a talent agent and his father a business consultant. As a child, Brendon hoped to become a professional baseball player, but he later said he "lost the passion for it" at age 20. He attended Chatsworth High School in the San Fernando Valley. He turned to acting as a way to manage a stutter that had first appeared when he was seven or eight. The condition made him reluctant to speak or interact with strangers, and he stated that he did not begin dating until his early 20s. Brendon described working through his stutter with daily tongue-twisters and deliberate pacing, noting that "patience and persistence have paid off." He later worked with the Stuttering Foundation of America, which approached him around 2001, and served as honorary chairperson for National Stuttering Awareness Week in May of that year. Brendon left acting after two years, stating that he "couldn't stand the politics in Hollywood". He subsequently returned to school to study medicine, though he did not complete the program, and held a series of jobs, including plumber's assistant, veterinary janitor, day-care counselor, waiter, and production assistant on the television series Dave's World.
Brendon said that at age 25 he had hit "rock bottom": his girlfriend had left him, he was working as a waiter and struggling to pay his rent, and he had nearly given up on finding steady acting work. After he bought the wrong kind of Pop-Tarts for his co-workers, his boss fired him and told him, "You should be acting." He was drawn to the pilot script for Buffy the Vampire Slayer because of how much he had disliked high school. He later said that the character of Xander Harris was based on Joss Whedon's own high‑school experiences, which he believed explained why the character "gets all the good lines". Brendon signed with a manager and was cast as Xander three months later. The role became his best‑known work. Brendon portrayed Xander for seven seasons, appearing in all but one of the show's 144 episodes. For his performance, he received Saturn Award nominations in 1998 and 1999 for Best Genre TV Actor, and in 2000 for Best Supporting Actor. He remained active within the Buffy fan community, regularly attending conventions, and contributed to the development of Xander's character in the franchise's follow-up comic books. In 2014, he took part in a writers' summit for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics, alongside Joss Whedon, Jane Espenson, Drew Greenberg, Andrew Chambliss, and incoming writer Christos Gage. He contributed to Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten, working on stories focused on Xander.
After Buffy ended in 2003, Brendon joined the cast of the Fox pilot The Pool at Maddy Breakers, though the network did not pick up the series. In 2004, he co-starred in the ABC Family film Celeste in the City. The following year, he returned to Fox as part of the cast of Kitchen Confidential, based on Anthony Bourdain's memoir. Thirteen episodes were produced, but the series was canceled on December 9 after the fourth episode aired due to low ratings. In 2006, Brendon had a recurring role as a voice actor in the animated series American Dragon: Jake Long. That same year, he reunited with former Buffy co-star Charisma Carpenter in the ABC Family film Relative Chaos.
From July 26 to August 30, 2006, Brendon co-starred with Noah Wyle in the play Lobster Alice at the Blank Theatre Company in Los Angeles. He later appeared in the Blank Theatre's annual Young Playwrights Festival, as well as its productions of The SantaLand Diaries (November – to December 20, 2009), and Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them. In 2007, Brendon began a recurring role on Criminal Minds as FBI technical analyst Kevin Lynch. He appeared in episodes across subsequent seasons through the 10th season. In late 2010, he launched the webcomic Very Bad Koalas, co-created with animation director and producer Steve Loter. The comic follows two sheltered koalas on the run from the law in a 1958 Cadillac El Dorado. Also in 2010, Brendon appeared in a four-episode arc on ABC's Private Practice as Lee McHenry, a mentally disturbed man who assaults Charlotte King. He later had a recurring role in Untitled Web Series About a Space Traveler Who Can Also Travel Through Time, appearing alongside Sylvester McCoy, Robert Picardo, Mayim Bialik, Chase Masterson, Rosearik Rikki Simons, and Carrie Keranen.
Brendon was married to actress Tressa DiFiglia from 2001 to 2006. Brendon enjoyed painting and photography and sold his own original artwork. At a Buffy fan convention in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2004, Brendon announced that he had voluntarily entered rehabilitation for alcoholism. Brendon married Moonda Tee in Las Vegas in 2014, one week after proposing. He announced their separation on social media five months later, in February 2015. Tee claimed in a video posted to social media that the separation occurred because Brendon had cheated on her.
