Karl Laurence Backus is an American actor and art director who appeared in multiple productions of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in the 1980s and 90s, a San Diego production of Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde (2003), and the films Skin: The Movie (2018), Thane of East County (2015), and Walking with the Enemy (2013). Backus has multiple ensemble nominations at the Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema.