Lee Arenberg

Lee Arenberg is the American actor who portrays Grumpy and Leroy on ABC's Once Upon a Time and Once Upon a Time in Wonderland.

Biography
Lee Arenberg was born on July 18 in Palo Alto, California and grew up in Santa Monica. Bitten by the acting bug at age eight when he portrayed David in his Hebrew school play, Killing Goliath, he notes the parable “could be the title of any actor’s chances in this game". Lee attended Santa Monica High School with “brat packers” Sean Penn, Robert Downey, Jr. and Emilio Estevez. Later, he co-wrote a play with Emilio Estevez, which was directed by Sean Penn.

Most frequently referred to as a character actor, Lee maintains a flourishing acting career—almost twenty years spanning television, stage and film. He has appeared in more than thirty movies, including Cradle Will Rock, Robocop 3, Waterworld, Bob Roberts, The Apocalypse, Cross My Heart and others including fantasy adventure feature Dungeons &amp; Dragons. Lee received many accolades for his part of Pintel in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which was the highest grossing live-action movie of 2003.

On his career, he remarks, “The best part of this journey is realizing that you are on one. One must stop and check the road traveled as well as the destination. I’ve been very lucky over fifteen years to do film, television and stage on many continents, in many countries with many different types of people.” He adds, “It’s connecting with people, whether on set or off that I enjoy the most about this ride.” Lee considers himself a “soul communicator,” explaining that “the craft of acting is the process of establishing connections between all sorts of souls.”

In his leisure time, he enjoys golf, cooking, blues harmonica, video games and playing poker with a group of fellow actors. He is involved with Jay Nolan Community Services which helps autistic children and their families and animal rights organizations, participating regularly in fund raising efforts on behalf of those charitable causes. Lee resides in Los Angeles with his two dogs and cats.

Trivia

 * Is the only cast member to appear in all five seasons of Once Upon a Time and its spin-off.

Appearances
Note: "Archive" denotes archive footage.