American actor, born on June 28, 1966, in
Evanston, Illinois. Only his mother was a non-actor; his father and all his siblings (most notably, his sister
Joan) have been actors for years.
John became a member of
Chicago's prestigious
Piven Theatre Workshop when he was still in
elementary school and was an almost-full-time actor, working on
stage and in
commercials, by the time he was 12 years old. His first feature film was "
Class," with
Rob Lowe and
Andrew McCarthy, in 1983, when he was just 17. This was followed by high-profile roles in "
Sixteen Candles," "
The Sure Thing," "
Stand by Me," "
Better Off Dead," and "
Eight Men Out" within just a couple of years. One of his best-known roles was as
Lloyd Dobler, the incurable
romantic with the blaring
boombox in "
Say Anything..." in 1989.
Cusack spent most of the
1990s in
low-key but
respected films, like "
The Grifters" and "
Bullets over Broadway." He
directed and
produced shows for a Chicago
theater group he founded called the
New Criminals and started up a sister company with some high school friends -- New Crime Productions' first film was the
quirky "
Grosse Pointe Blank," which Cusack starred in and helped write. He followed up with "
Con Air," "
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," and "
Pushing Tin," before moving on to oddball cult hits, like "
Being John Malkovich" and "
High Fidelity", as well as highbrow historical dramas like "
Max" and "
The Raven." Many of his more recent films have been direct-to-video productions.
It's hard to try to sum up an actor's career when he's still working, but Cusack has made a
successful career out of playing
underdogs,
cynics, and
outcasts, and there's little doubt that his acting choices will continue along similar lines. All
indications are that while he'll appear in mainstream movies to help pay the bills, he prefers playing unconventional characters in
unconventional movies, which is
good news -- there are already too many actors who act for the
paycheck, and it's nice to see someone who's acting because it's
fun and
challenging...
Research from the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com)