With a fair-skinned face that recalls Leonardo DiCaprio and blue-green eyes that seem to pierce the screen, actor Michael Pitt has come a long way from his role as a high school football star on Dawson’s Creek. An adventurous actor who isn’t afraid to take risks, Michael Pitt has appeared as everything from a callous glam rocker (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) to a murderous, introspective teen (Murder by Numbers) – all with equal conviction.
A native of West Orange, NJ, Michael Pitt realized his future calling at the age of ten. His supportive parents soon gathered the money to send their son to drama school in New York a few short years later. At 16, Michael Pitt crossed the Hudson River with little more than the shirt on his back, and in between the occasional independent film and television role, the aspiring actor supported himself by taking a job as a bike messenger. In 1999, Michael Pitt made his off-Broadway debut in the Depression-era drama The Trestle of Pope Lick Creek, and it was there that a casting agent spotted him and recommended him for a role in Dawson’s Creek. With the creative constraints of television failing to fulfill Pitt artistically, however, the rising star quickly gravitated to more challenging feature roles.