EMILE HIRSCH Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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EMILE HIRSCH

Name: Emile Hirsch                                                                 
Born: 13 March 1985 Topanga, California                                             
                                                                                   
Emile Davenport Hirsch (born March 13, 1985) is an American television and film     
actor. He began performing in the late 1990s, appearing in several television       
films and series, and became known as a film actor after roles in Lords of         
Dogtown, The Emperor's Club, The Girl Next Door, Alpha Dog and Into the Wild.       
Hirsch is slated to appear in the upcoming film Speed Racer.                       
                                                                                   
Emile Hirsch was born in Topanga, California, the son of Margaret (née Davenport), 
a visual artist and teacher who designed pop-up books, and David Hirsch, an         
industrial consultant, manager, and producer. He has an older sister,               
Jenny, who introduced him to acting. Hirsch was raised in Los Angeles,             
California and Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he lived with his mother after his       
parents divorced. He attended Paul Revere Middle School and the Academy of         
Music at Alexander Hamilton High School in Los Angeles.                             
                                                                                   
Hirsch began acting at the age of eight, appearing in minor roles on               
television shows or made-for-television films, including Kindred: the Embraced;     
Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and NYPD Blue. He made his film debut with the 2002     
drama, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, where he starred opposite Kieran         
Culkin in the story of two Catholic school boys. His next role was in the           
prep school drama, The Emperor's Club, which was released later in 2002. Both       
films received generally positive reviews, but performed only moderately at the     
box office.                                                                         
                                                                                   
Hirsch was subsequently cast opposite Elisha Cuthbert in the 2004 teen comedy,     
The Girl Next Door, and as a result gained renown among teenage audiences. The     
Mudge Boy, an independent film that he had starred in before making Girl Next       
Door, was given a limited release in the summer of 2004. Hirsch next appeared in   
Imaginary Heroes, a drama about a dysfunctional family, which received a limited   
release in February 2005 but failed to reach a wider audience, despite mostly       
positive reviews.                                                                   
                                                                                   
In 2005, Hirsch starred in Lords of Dogtown; the film, about a number of well-known 
skaters of the 1970s, was released on June 3, 2005, but ultimately performed       
poorly at the box office. He subsequently appeared in Alpha Dog, a dark             
drama in which he played a character based on real-life drug dealer Jesse James     
Hollywood; the film was shot in 2004 and released on January 12, 2007. Hirsch       
consulted with Hollywood's real life father before playing the role, and has       
said that he felt "pretty afraid in my bones most of the time" while filming       
because of the film's raw characters and dialogue.                                 
                                                                                   
Hirsch next played adventurer Christopher McCandless in Sean Penn's critically     
acclaimed adventure-drama Into the Wild, released on September 21, 2007. He lost   
40 pounds for the role and was noted in reviews as a potential Academy Award       
nominee for the film, also receiving a Screen Actors Guild nomination for best     
actor. Hirsch is also filming the lead role in Speed Racer, scheduled for           
a May 2008 release.                                                                 
                                                                                   
It has been announced that Hirsch is in his final negotiations to star in Gus       
Van Sant's upcoming Harvey Milk bio-pic Milk. Hirsch is in talks to play gay       
rights activist Cleve Jones. Sean Penn is set to play Harvey Milk.