Emile Hirsch Biography

Emile Hirsch
extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Emile Hirsch
Hirsch at the Tribeca Film Festival, May 2008
Born	March 13, 1985 (1985-03-13) (age 23) Topanga, California, USA

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. In 2008, Hirsch starred in Speed Racer¹ and will appear in Milk with Sean Penn, his director from the film Into the Wild.

1 Biography
- 1.1 Early life
- 1.2 Career
2 Filmography
3 References
4 External links

Biography

Early life

Hirsch was born in Topanga, California, the son of Margaret (nÃ©e Davenport), a visual artist and teacher who designed pop-up books, and David Hirsch, an industrial consultant, manager, and producer.²³ His older sister Jenny introduced him to acting.² Hirsch was raised in Los Angeles, California, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he lived with his mother after his parents divorced.²⁴ He attended Paul Revere Middle School and the Academy of Music at Alexander Hamilton High School in Los Angeles. Hirsch left early and did not attain a high school diploma.

Career

Hirsch began acting at the age of eight,⁴ appearing in minor roles on television shows and 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.⁴ 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 recognition amongst 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.⁵⁶

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.⁵⁶ He subsequently appeared in Alpha Dog, a dark drama starring Bruce Willis and Sharon Stone 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,⁷ 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.⁸

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.⁴⁹ Hirsch had the lead role in Speed Racer, which was released on Friday, May 9, 2008.¹

Hirsch plays gay rights activist Cleve Jones in Gus Van Sant's 2008 Harvey Milk bio-pic Milk starring Sean Penn in the title role as slain San Francisco politician, Harvey Milk. The film is set in the 1970s and will be released in the Fall of 2008.

He is presently co-starring in Taking Woodstock, based on a screenplay of Elliot Tiber's memoir Taking Woodstock, adapted by James Schamus. The film is being directed by Academy Award Winning Director Ang Lee. His co-stars are Demetri Martin, Liev Schreiber, Imelda Staunton, Eugene Levy and Henry Goodman. Taking Woodstock is being shot in upstate New York and it is reported that it will be released in 2009.

Recently, Hirsch has undertaken his music career, rehashing his old high school band. His band goes by the name of Emil and Friends and is currently touring the United States.

Filmography

Hirsch in December 2007

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2001	Wild Iris	Lony Brevard
2002	The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys	Francis Doyle
2002	The Emperor's Club	Sedgewick Bell
2004	The Girl Next Door	Matthew Kidman
2004	The Mudge Boy	Duncan Mudge	limited release
2005	Imaginary Heroes	Tim Travis	limited release
2005	Lords of Dogtown	Jay Adams
2007	Alpha Dog	Johnny Truelove
	The Air I Breathe	Tony
	Into the Wild	Christopher McCandless
2008	Speed Racer	Speed
2008	Milk	Cleve Jones
2009	Taking Woodstock	TBA	post-production

References

^ ^a ^b Dicker, Ron (2007-09-16). "Two Postcards From Toronto: Evan Rachel Wood, Emile Hirsch Give Hollywood A Glimpse Of Its Future", Hartford Courant. Retrieved on 16 September 2007.
^ ^a ^b ^c McLean, Craig (2007-10-20). "Call of the wild", Telegraph. Retrieved on 20 October 2007.
^ Toppman, Lawrence (2007-10-21). "C`Wild' sets young star soaring", The Charlotte Observer. Retrieved on 21 October 2007.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Piccalo, Gina (2007-09-22). "Emile Hirsch comes 'Into the Wild'", Los Angeles Times. Retrieved on 22 September 2007.
^ ^a ^b "The Numbers.com". Emile Hirsch. Retrieved on March 16, 2006.
^ ^a ^b "Rotten Tomatoes". Emile Hirsch. Retrieved on March 16, 2006.
^ "Hirsch Talked To Fugitive's Dad For Film", Playfuls (2007-01-07). Retrieved on 7 January 2007.
^ Shuster, Fred (2007-01-06). "'Alpha Dog' has its day", San Bernardino Sun. Retrieved on 7 January 2007.
^ Levine, Stuart (2007-09-18). "Emile Hirsch is here to stay", MSNBC. Retrieved on 19 September 2007.