Noah Wyle

Wyle, the middle of three children, was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Marjorie (née Speer), a registered orthopedic head nurse, and Stephen Wyle, an electrical engineer and entrepreneur. His father was Jewish (of Russian-Jewish descent), whereas his mother was Episcopalian, and he was raised "fairly nondenominationally", around both faiths. Wyle's parents divorced in the late 1970s, and his mother later married James C. Katz, a film restorationist with three children of his own from a previous marriage. Wyle's paternal grandparents, Edith and Frank Wyle, founded the Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum, and his grandfather also founded Wyle Laboratories. Edith R. Wyle was an expressionist painter who also created The Egg and The Eye, a café and shop in the Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles.

Wyle was educated at The Thacher School in Ojai, California, and graduated with the class of 1989. Wyle participated in a Theatre Arts program at Northwestern University after his junior year of high school and appeared in high school plays, even winning an award for a play he wrote. Although he attended Northwestern University for a program in high school, he did not attend nor graduate from college. He studied with acting teacher Larry Moss while living in a small apartment on Hollywood Boulevard.