John Cusack
John Cusack | |
|---|---|
.jpg) John Cusack, May 2006 | |
| Born | John Paul Cusack |
John Paul Cusack (born June 28, 1966) is an American film actor and writer. He won the 1990 Most Promising Actor CFCA Award for Say Anything..., the 1998 Favorite Supporting Actor Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Con Air, and the 2000 Commitment to Chicago Award.[1]
Biography
Early life
Cusack was born in Evanston, Illinois, to an Irish American Catholic family.[2][3] His father, Dick Cusack (1925–2003), as well as his siblings Ann, Joan, Bill, and Susie have also been actors; his father was also a documentary filmmaker,[4] owned a film production company[5] and was a friend of activist Philip Berrigan.[6] Cusack's mother, Nancy, is a former mathematics teacher and political activist. Cusack spent a year at New York University before dropping out, saying that he had "too much fire in his belly".[7]
Career
Cusack first became famous in the mid-1980s for appearing in teen movies such as Better Off Dead, The Sure Thing, One Crazy Summer, and Sixteen Candles. Cusack made a cameo in the 1988 music video for "Trip At The Brain" by Suicidal Tendencies. His biggest success in that genre is arguably his starring role as Lloyd Dobler in Cameron Crowe's Say Anything. He began broadening his choice of roles in the late 1980s and early 1990s with more serious-minded fare, such as the political satire True Colors and the noir thriller The Grifters.
Cusack became a proven box office success with his roles in the black comedy Grosse Pointe Blank and the Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster Con Air.[citation needed] He has since chosen a diverse range of roles, such as an obsessive puppeteer in Being John Malkovich, a lovelorn record store owner in High Fidelity, and a Jewish art dealer mentoring a young Adolf Hitler in Max. He appeared in the horror film 1408, based on Stephen King's short story of the same name. He next appeared as a widowed father in the Iraq War-themed drama Grace is Gone and as assassin Brand Hauser in the dark political satire, War, Inc., along with Hilary Duff and his sister Joan.
His sister Joan and his close friend Jeremy Piven have appeared in many of his films. John and Joan appeared as two geeks in Sixteen Candles: John as one of Farmer Ted's posse, and Joan as the geek with the neck brace. They also appeared together in Martian Child, High Fidelity, Grosse Pointe Blank, Cradle Will Rock and Say Anything. Jeremy and John played opposite one another in One Crazy Summer, Serendipity, and Grosse Pointe Blank. Piven also had roles in Say Anything, Grosse Pointe Blank, and Runaway Jury.[8]
Personal life
Cusack is fiercely protective of his private life; he has said that "celebrity is the worst thing that can happen to an actor". Since May 2005, he has been an occasional contributing blogger at The Huffington Post, including interviewing Naomi Klein. He has written extensively on his opposition to the war in Iraq and his disdain for the Bush administration, calling their worldview "depressing, corrupt, unlawful, and tragically absurd".[9]
Cusack has an allegiance to both the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox, for which, he says, he's "in trouble there for that."[10] He has also led the crowd in a performance of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" at Wrigley Field.[10]
In 2008 police arrested a woman that they believed had stalked Cusack.[11]
Filmography
Films
- Class (1983)
- Sixteen Candles (1984)
- Grandview, U.S.A. (1984)
- The Sure Thing (1985)
- The Journey of Natty Gann (1985)
- Better Off Dead (1985)
- Stand by Me (1986)
- One Crazy Summer (1986)
- Hot Pursuit (1987)
- Eight Men Out (1988)
- Tapeheads (1988)
- Elvis Stories (1989) (short subject)
- Say Anything (1989)
- Fat Man and Little Boy (1989)
- The Grifters (1990)
- True Colors (1991)
- Shadows and Fog (1992)
- The Player (1992) (Cameo)
- Bob Roberts (1992)
- Roadside Prophets (1992)
- Map of the Human Heart (1993)
- Money for Nothing (1993)
- Floundering (1994)
- Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
- The Road to Wellville (1994)
- City Hall (1996)
- Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)
- Con Air (1997)
- Anastasia (1997) (voice)
- Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997)
- Hellcab (1998)
- This Is My Father (1998)
- The Thin Red Line (1998)
- Pushing Tin (1999)
- Cradle Will Rock (1999)
- Being John Malkovich (1999)
- The Jack Bull (1999)
- High Fidelity (2000)
- America's Sweethearts (2001)
- Serendipity (2001)
- Max (2002)
- Adaptation. (2002) (Cameo)
- Identity (2003)
- Breakfast With Hunter (2003) (documentary)
- Runaway Jury (2003)
- Must Love Dogs (2005)
- The Ice Harvest (2005)
- Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film (2006) (documentary)
- Summerhood (2006) (documentary) (narrator)
- The Contract (2006)
- 1408 (2007)
- Martian Child (2007)
- Grace Is Gone (2007)
Upcoming films
- War, Inc. (2008) (awaiting release)
- Igor (2008) (voice) (post-production)
- The Factory (2009) (post-production)
- Shanghai (2008) (pre-production)
References
- ^ John Cusack - Awards
- ^ John Cusack interview
- ^ John Cusack Interview-Max Movie
- ^ Being John Cusack | Interviews | guardian.co.uk Film
- ^ John Cusack Biography (1966-)
- ^ Actor John Cusack on Hitler, politics and his movie 'Max' - Beliefnet.com
- ^ Actor John Cusack : NPR
- ^ One Crazy Summer (1986) - Full cast and crew
- ^ John Cusack - Politics on The Huffington Post
- ^ a b Inside the Actors Studio, December 3, 2007
- ^ "Woman arrested on suspicion of stalking Cusack." CNN.