Education
New York University; Tisch School of the Arts.
New York University; Tisch School of the Arts.
He is known for playing Mickey Doyle on the Home Box Office period drama series Boardwalk Empire and Thomas Yates on the Netflix political drama series House of Cards. He has also appeared in the films Deception (2008) as Detective Burke, Afterschool (2008) as Detective Eclisse, The Missing Person (2008) as Gus Papitos, Mud (2012) as Carver, Parkland (2013) as Harry McCormick, and Stealing Cars (2015) as Conrad Sean Lewis. Sparks was born and raised in Oklahoma.
He attended high school in Marlow.
He is the son of a football coach and a teacher. Sparks studied at Oklahoma State University and then completed his degree at New York University, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting in 1995.
In 2010, Sparks began portraying the regular role of Mickey Doyle on Home Box Office"s drama series Boardwalk Empire, which was created by Terence Winter and executive produced by Martin Scorsese and Mark Wahlberg. The series ended in 2014, after completing five seasons.