Nathan Ford

Nate Ford is the former leader and mastermind of the Leverage team. Good-looking and still sharp, despite the layers of insomnia and hangover damage he's inflicted on himself, he's accumulating as fast as he can.

Prior to leading the team, Nate was once an insurance investigator, an expert at recovering stolen items and apparently a legend in the criminal world until his company, I.Y.S. Insurance, refused to pay for his 8-year-old son Sam Ford's "experimental" cancer treatment.

After his son died, Nate's life fell apart. He lost his job, got divorced and became an alcoholic as a means of coping with his son's death. In the pilot, which takes place a couple of years after Sam's death, Victor Dubenich hires Nate and a team of thieves to steal airplane designs from a company insured by I.Y.S. Insurance.

When Dubenich double-crosses and tries to kill them, Nate takes the team, enlists grifter Sophie Devereaux into the team and exacts his revenge on Dubenich, who used Sam's memory to talk Nate into taking the job.

Now, Nate leads the team to right injustices, funded by their unique take on "alternate revenue streams". He has a long catch-and-release history with Sophie, who is the only team member he selected himself as all the others were chosen beforehand. After years of flirting, they developed a strong working relationship which recently turned romantic.

Nate grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, Jimmy Ford, was a bookie and a fixer for several mob families. Nate spent a considerable amount of his childhood in McRory's, the pub under his apartment/former Leverage office in Boston, because his father did most of his business there. Nate wanted to be a priest and even attended seminary school but eventually dropped out and became an insurance investigator.

In the Season 5 finale, The Long Goodbye Job, Nate retires from the Leverage team for good with Parker replacing him as the team's Mastermind.