Paul Reiser is an American actor, comedian, and writer. He played the roles of Michael Taylor in the 1980s sitcom My Two Dads, Paul Buchman in the NBC sitcom Mad About You, Modell in the 1982 film Diner, Carter Burke in the 1986 film Aliens, and Detective Jeffrey Friedman in Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), and Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (2024). More recently, he has gained recognition for his roles as Jim Neiman in the 2014 film Whiplash and Dr. Sam Owens in the Netflix series Stranger Things.

Diner is a 1982 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Barry Levinson. It’s Levinson's screen-directing debut and the first of his "Baltimore Films" tetralogy, set in his hometown during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, the other three films are Tin Men (1987), Avalon (1990), and Liberty Heights (1999). It stars Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Mickey Rourke, Paul Reiser, Kevin Bacon, Timothy Daly and Ellen Barkin and was released on March 5, 1982. The movie follows a close-knit circle of friends who reunite at a Baltimore diner when one of them prepares to get married.