Joseph "Nathan" Lane is an American actor, voice actor, and writer.
For Disney, he was the original voice of Timon in The Lion King franchise, reprising this role for the bonus material on The Lion King 1½ DVD and for the Bloopers & Outtakes (Blu-ray only). He reprised Timon's voice on select episodes of the Timon & Pumbaa series, as well as voiced Spot Helperman in most episodes of Toon Disney's Teacher's Pet and its film of the same name (in which he also won separate Daytime Emmy Awards for working on both television series). He also played Officer Frank Meany in A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa and Ed Chapman in the 1993 Touchstone Pictures film Life with Mikey, and Art Crumb in Swing Vote. He currently plays Teddy Dimas in the 2021 Hulu series Only Murders in the Building.
Lane was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. His father, Daniel Joseph Lane, was a truck driver and an aspiring tenor who died in 1967 from alcoholism when Lane was eleven. His mother, Nora Veronica (Finnerty), was a housewife and secretary who suffered from bipolar disorder and died in 2000. He has two older brothers, Daniel, Jr. and Robert. Lane's parents were Catholics, and all of his grandparents were Irish immigrants. He is named after his uncle, a Jesuit priest. Lane attended Catholic schools in Jersey City, including Jesuit-run St. Peter's Preparatory School, where he was voted Best Actor in 1974, and years later received the 2011 Prep Hall of Fame Professional Achievement Award.