Brown was born in Michigan but grew up in Connecticut. In 1972 he moved to New York City, where he worked as an orderly in a nursing home and as a waiter, before he started taking acting classes.
On television, he is best known for playing Taylor Brown in the sitcom What a Country! (1986–1987) and for his recurring roles as John Whitsig in Sisters (1991–1996) and Philip Evans in Roswell (1999–2002).
He is known for portraying Bob Russell in Uncle Buck (1989) and James Lizewski in Kick-Ass (2010) and Kick-Ass 2 (2013). He also played the titular lead role in Hello, My Name Is Frank (2014), for which he won the Best Actor Award at the Manhattan Film Festival.
In The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story (2016) he played Nicole Brown Simpson's father Lou.
