David Russell Strathairn (born January 26, 1949) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor.

Strathairn was born in San Francisco, California, the son of a physician. He has Scottish ancestry through his paternal grandfather, Thomas Scott Strathairn (a native of Crieff, Perthshire), and Native Hawaiian ancestry through his paternal grandmother, Lei. Strathairn attended Redwood High School in Larkspur, California and graduated from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts in 1970. He studied at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College in Venice, Florida and briefly worked as a clown in a traveling circus.

He is married to Logan Goodman Strathairn, a nurse. They have two sons and live in the mid-Hudson Valley area of upstate New York, near Poughkeepsie. Their son Tay, an actor and musician who plays jazz piano, appeared in John Sayles' films Eight Men Out (as Eddie Cicotte) and Lone Star (as Young Sam).