Biography John Paul Cusack was born on June 28th 1966 to Dick (an emmy award winning documentary filmaker) and Nancy Cusack (a math teacher), and grew up in Evanston, Illinois. He is the fourth of five siblings; Joan, Ann, Bill, John, Susie. He started going to the Piven Theater Workshop (owned by friend Jeremy Piven's parents) from the age of eight. Owner Byrne Piven recalls, 'When I first met John Cusack, he was mewling and screaming in his mother's arms, but even then he was a player.' He started acting in theater productions but didn't get the lead as Hamlet the play going on at his high school. He claims he wasn't going to suck up to the teacher (right on!). By the age of 16, he had an agent, and although he wasn't too happy about him auditioning for the a role in the film Class, John went anyway and got the part. "I remember waking up, putting on The Specials, and instead of going to school, I was going to a movie set with Jacqueline Bisset. And I remember thinking, 'I'm winning.' The kids I went to school with thought I was winning, too." John played Roscoe. Later, he went on to play Bryce in Sixteen Candles. By the age of 19, he starred in his first feature film, directed by Rob Reiner, The Sure Thing. When asked what kind of a student he was, John simply repiled, "absent." For one semester, he attened NYU, but dropped out to persue acting. "Too much fire in the belly," he stated when asked why he did it. From then on, he went to star in various films such as Hot Pursuit, Better off Dead, Eight Men Out, Say Anything, The Grifters, Shadows and Fog, True Colors, and Bullets Over Broadway, Bob Roberts, The Road to Wellville. From 1994-1996, John didn't do very much acting. He went through a cameo-phase also. In 1996, he came back onto the scene with City Hall. He then moved onto the movie he starred in, co-wrote, and produced Grosse Pointe Blank. Some of his fans claim that this is his best film ever. He formed the productio company New Crime Productions with his two high school friends, Steve Pink, and D.V. DeVincents (who also had cameo's in GPB). Most recently, he had been in Clint Eastwood's adaption of the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line, and played the "eccentric" U.S. Marshal Vice Larkin in Con Air. He also did the voice of Dimitri in the fox-animated feature Anastasia. Just recetly, Pushing Tin, and The Jack Bull were released. The Jack Bull airs on HBO frequently, and Pushing Tin may still be playing in some theaters, and should be in the waiting line to come out on video. At the moment, he is in Chicago filming High Fidelity which he co-wrote, and produced, and is starring in. This is based on the novel by Nick Hornby. In the fall, the anticipated The Cradle Will Rock will come out, and by the end of the year, Being John Malkovich should have a release date. |