Adam Driver | |
---|---|
Born | Adam Douglas Driver November 19, 1983 San Diego, California, U.S. |
Alma mater | |
Occupation | Actor |
Years active | 2009–present |
Spouse | Joanne Tucker (m. 2013) |
Children | 2 |
Relatives | Henry Tucker (grandfather-in-law) |
Awards | Full list |
Military career | |
Allegiance | United States |
Service/ | United States Marine Corps |
Rank | Lance corporal |
Adam Douglas Driver (born November 19, 1983) is an American actor. Recognized for his collaborations with auteur filmmakers, he is the recipient of various accolades, including nominations for two Academy Awards, four Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award.
Driver made his Broadway debut in Mrs. Warren's Profession (2010) and subsequently appeared in Man and Boy (2011). He rose to prominence with a supporting role in the HBO series Girls (2012–2017), for which he received three consecutive Primetime Emmy nominations. He began his film career in supporting roles in Lincoln (2012), Frances Ha (2012) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013). He won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for a leading role in Hungry Hearts (2014).
Driver gained wider recognition for playing Kylo Ren in the Star Wars sequel trilogy (2015–2019). He played a poet in Paterson (2016), and had supporting roles in the religious epic Silence (2016) and the heist comedy Logan Lucky (2017). In 2019, he returned to the stage in the Broadway revival of Burn This , for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. He garnered consecutive Academy Award nominations: Best Supporting Actor for BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Best Actor for Marriage Story (2019). [1] He has since starred in Ridley Scott's 2021 period films The Last Duel and House of Gucci , and played Enzo Ferrari in Michael Mann’s biopic Ferrari (2023).
Driver is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. [2] [3] He also was the founder of Arts in the Armed Forces, a non-profit that provided free arts programming to American active-duty service members, veterans, military support staff, and their families worldwide. [4]
Driver was born on November 19, 1983, [5] in San Diego, California, [6] the son of Nancy Wright (née Needham), a paralegal, and Joe Douglas Driver. [7] [8] Director Terry Gilliam has claimed that Driver has Native American ancestry, [9] though Driver has no known Native American ancestors. His father's family is from Arkansas, and his mother's family is from Indiana. His stepfather, Rodney G. Wright, is a minister at a Baptist church. [10] [11] When Driver was seven years old, he moved with his older sister and mother to his mother's hometown Mishawaka, Indiana, where he graduated from Mishawaka High School in 2001. [12] [13] Driver was raised Baptist, and sang in the choir at church. [14]
Driver has described his teenage self as a "misfit"; he told M Magazine that he climbed radio towers, set objects on fire, and co-founded a fight club with friends, inspired by the 1999 film Fight Club . [15] Throughout high school, he was active in choir and theater, participating in school productions of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Into the Woods, and Guys and Dolls. [16] He applied to The Juilliard School for drama knowing that they would not look at his grades from high school, but was not accepted. [17] After high school, he worked as a door-to-door salesman selling Kirby vacuum cleaners and as a telemarketer for a basement waterproofing company and Ben Franklin Construction. [18]
When Driver was eighteen he attempted to start his acting career in Los Angeles, leaving Indiana by car and breaking down in Amarillo, Texas. He spent his money repairing his car only to make it to Santa Monica where he lived in a hostel for 48 hours and was scammed by a real estate agent he paid to find him an apartment. He realized he did not have enough money to live, returning to Indiana after only a week away from home. [19]
Shortly after the September 11 attacks, Driver enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. [5] He was assigned to Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines as an 81mm mortar man. [20] He served for two years and eight months before fracturing his sternum while mountain biking. [21] He was medically discharged with the rank of Lance Corporal.
Subsequently, Driver attended the University of Indianapolis for a year before auditioning again for Juilliard, this time succeeding. He got the news he was accepted while at work at the Target Distribution Center in Indianapolis. Driver has said that his classmates saw him as an intimidating and volatile figure, and he struggled to fit into a lifestyle so different from the Marines. [15] He was a member of the Drama Division's Group 38 from 2005 to 2009, where he met his future wife, Joanne Tucker. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2009. [22]
After graduating from Juilliard, Driver moved to New York City, appearing in both Broadway and off-Broadway productions. Like many aspiring actors, he occasionally worked as a busboy and waiter. [23] Driver appeared in several television shows and short films. He played a repentant witness and reluctant accomplice to an unsolved assault in the final episode of the television series The Unusuals . He made his film debut in Clint Eastwood's biographical film J. Edgar .
In 2012, Driver was cast in the HBO comedy-drama series Girls , as the emotionally unstable boyfriend of a writer (Lena Dunham). He received three nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his role. [24] Driver played telegraph and cipher officer Samuel Beckwith in Steven Spielberg's historical drama Lincoln , and Lev Shapiro in Noah Baumbach's comedy-drama Frances Ha . [25] He starred in the drama Not Waving But Drowning and the romantic-comedy Gayby . He garnered major off-Broadway recognition for playing Cliff, a working-class Welsh houseguest in Look Back in Anger, and won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play. [26]
In 2013, Driver appeared in the drama Bluebird and the romantic-comedy What If . He played a musician in the Coen Brothers' black comedy Inside Llewyn Davis , and photographer Rick Smolan in the drama Tracks . In 2014, he played a despairing father in the drama Hungry Hearts , an aspiring filmmaker in Noah Baumbach's comedy While We're Young , and the black sheep of a dysfunctional Jewish family in the comedy-drama This Is Where I Leave You . For his performance in Hungry Hearts, Driver won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 71st Venice International Film Festival. [27] For Vogue 's September 2013 issue, Driver appeared alongside Canadian model Daria Werbowy set in Ireland, photographed by Annie Leibovitz. [28]
In early 2014, Driver was cast as villain Kylo Ren in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). [29] [30] It was released on December 18, 2015, to commercial and critical success. [31] He reprised the role in The Last Jedi (2017) [32] and The Rise of Skywalker (2019). [33] His performance was positively received; David Edelstein of Vulture wrote, "the core of The Last Jedi — of this whole trilogy, it seems — is Driver's Kylo Ren, who ranks with cinema's most fascinating human monsters." [34] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian highlighted Driver's performance in his review of The Force Awakens, calling him "gorgeously cruel, spiteful and capricious... very suited to Kylo Ren's fastidious and amused contempt for his enemies' weakness and compassion." [35]
Driver had a supporting role in Jeff Nichols' science fiction film Midnight Special , which was released on March 18, 2016. [36] [37] He played a 17th-century Portuguese Jesuit priest in Martin Scorsese's historical film Silence (2016). [38] While filming, Driver lost almost 50 pounds. [39] In Jim Jarmusch's drama film Paterson , Driver played the eponymous bus driver and poetry writer. [40] It premiered at the 69th Cannes Film Festival and was released on December 28, 2016. [41] [42] Driver's performance was acclaimed [43] [44] and he received multiple nominations for Best Actor from critics' associations, winning several, including the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor. [45] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote "Driver's indelibly moving portrayal is so lived-in and lyrical you hardly recognize it as acting." [46] Paterson was included in many critics' top ten lists of best films of 2016. [47]
In 2017, Driver made a cameo in Noah Baumbach's The Meyerowitz Stories , making his third appearance in one of their films. It premiered at the 70th Cannes Film Festival and was released on October 13, 2017. [48] He played Clyde, a one-armed Iraq War veteran, in Steven Soderbergh's Logan Lucky , which was released on August 18, 2017. [49] Driver played a Jewish police detective, who infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan in Spike Lee's comedy-drama BlacKkKlansman . It premiered at 71st Cannes Film Festival and was released on August 10, 2018. [50] He received critical acclaim for his performance in the film and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Driver played Toby Grummett in Terry Gilliam's adventure-comedy film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018), which also premiered at Cannes. [51]
In 2019, Driver played Daniel J. Jones in Scott Z. Burns' political drama The Report , which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. That same year Driver returned to Broadway to play Pale against Keri Russell in Michael Mayer's directed 2019 production of Lanford Wilson's Burn This , receiving acclaim for his explosive performance and a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. [52] He was part of the ensemble cast of Jim Jarmusch's zombie comedy film The Dead Don't Die , which premiered at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival and was released on June 14, 2019. That same year, Driver starred opposite Scarlett Johansson in Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story , which premiered at the 76th Venice International Film Festival. [53] [54] Reviewing the film in The Hollywood Reporter , critic Jon Frosch noted that Driver "delivers a brilliantly inhabited and shaded portrait" of a man undergoing a divorce. [55] For his performance, he received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor, BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. [56]
On January 25, 2020, Driver returned to host Saturday Night Live for the third time with musical guest Halsey.
In 2020, Driver became the subject of a running gag on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver , in which Oliver expressed several strange masochistic fantasies about Driver, referencing his muscular build and masculine appearance. Driver eventually appeared on the final episode of the season and "demanded an apology". [57] In 2021, he went viral for his shirtless appearance in the advertising campaign for Burberry's masculine fragrance Hero. [58] Driver again returned for the advertising campaign for the eau de parfum concentration of Hero in 2022. [59] [60]
In 2021, Driver starred in Leos Carax's long-awaited musical drama film Annette , which premiered at the 74th Cannes Film Festival. [61] [62] [63] He had a leading role in Ridley Scott's historical drama The Last Duel , along with the biopic crime film House of Gucci , which covers the assassination of Maurizio Gucci, and was also directed by Scott. [64] Equally praised by critics and directors, [65] Driver's acting has a unique signature style that displays skittish, unpredictable physicality with full-bodied enthusiasm like Denis Lavant and Buster Keaton. [66] [67]
In 2022, Driver starred in the apocalyptic black comedy film White Noise , which marks his fifth collaboration with Baumbach. [68] Driver starred in the science fiction film 65 and is scheduled to star in Jeff Nichols' historical film Yankee Commandante. [69] Driver played Enzo Ferrari in Michael Mann's biopic film Ferrari . [70] In May 2023, it was announced that Driver would be an honorary starter for the 107th running of the Indianapolis 500 auto race. [71] On December 9, 2023, Driver hosted Saturday Night Live for the fourth time with musical guest Olivia Rodrigo. [72]
He joined the cast for Francis Ford Coppola's film Megalopolis . [73]
Driver married his longtime partner Joanne Tucker in June 2013. [74] Tucker is the granddaughter of Bermudian politician Henry Tucker. [75] The couple have a son, whose birth they kept private from the press for two years. Tucker gave birth to a second child in early 2023. [76] They live in Brooklyn Heights with their children and dog. [77] Driver is the founder of Arts in the Armed Forces (AITAF), a nonprofit that performs theater for all branches of the military in the United States and abroad. [78] [79]
Driver has said on multiple occasions that he dislikes watching or listening to his own performances. During a radio interview with NPR's Fresh Air , he chose not to continue with the interview after the host played a clip from Marriage Story. The executive producer of the radio show later claimed that Driver was warned to remove his headphones before the clip played, and that the show did something similar with Driver during a 2015 interview. During the same interview, Driver stated he dislikes watching or listening to his acting work. [80] He says his usual technique is to leave the theater and "then I go back and, when the lights come up, I stand up. I pretend that I was there the whole time." [81]
† | Denotes productions that have not yet been released |
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2009 | The Wonderful Maladys | Zed | Unaired pilot; filmed in May 2009 |
The Unusuals | Will Slansky | Episode: "The E.I.D." | |
2010 | Law & Order | Robby Vickery | Episode: "Brilliant Disguise" |
You Don't Know Jack | Glen Stetson | Television film | |
2012 | Law & Order: Special Victims Unit | Jason Roberts | Episode: "Theatre Tricks" |
2012–2017 | Girls | Adam Sackler | 49 episodes |
2015 | The Simpsons | Adam Sackler (voice) | Episode: "Every Man's Dream" |
2016–2023 | Saturday Night Live | Himself (host) | 4 episodes |
2017 | Bob's Burgers | Art the Artist (voice) | Two-part episode: "The Bleakening" |
2018 | Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People | Narrator (voice) | Television documentary |
Year | Title | Role | Venue | Production type |
---|---|---|---|---|
2009 | Slipping | Chris | Rattlestick Playwrights Theater | Off-Broadway |
The Retributionists | Dov Kaplinsky | Playwrights Horizons | Off-Broadway | |
2010 | Little Doc | Ric | Rattlestick Playwrights Theater | Off-Broadway |
The Forest | Bulanov | East 13th Street Theater | Off-Broadway | |
Mrs. Warren's Profession | Frank Gardner | American Airlines Theatre | Broadway | |
2010–2011 | Angels in America | Louis Ironson | Signature Theatre | Off-Broadway |
2011 | Man and Boy | Basil Anthony | American Airlines Theatre | Broadway |
2012 | Look Back in Anger | Cliff Lewis | Laura Pels Theatre | Off-Broadway |
2019 | Burn This | Pale | Hudson Theatre | Broadway |
Year | Title | Voice role |
---|---|---|
2015 | Disney Infinity 3.0 | Kylo Ren |
2016 | Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens |
Year | Title | Role | Venue |
---|---|---|---|
2019, 2020 | Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance | Kylo Ren | Disney's Hollywood Studios / Disneyland |
For his work on television, Driver has received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He received three nominations for his performance in Girls , from 2013, 2014 and 2015, in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series category. In 2020, he also received a nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his guest hosting role on Saturday Night Live . For his work in films, he has been nominated twice for an Academy Award, for his performances in BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Marriage Story (2019). He also received British Academy Film Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award (SAG) nominations for those films as well. He also received a SAG Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture as a part of the ensemble of Steven Spielberg's Lincoln . In 2019, he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play for his performance in Burn This at the 73rd Tony Awards.
Adam Richard Sandler is an American actor and comedian. Primarily a comedic leading actor in films, his accolades include nominations for three Grammy Awards, five Primetime Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2023, Sandler was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
Steven Vincent Buscemi is an American actor. Buscemi is known for his work as an acclaimed character actor. His early credits consist of major roles in independent film productions such as the AIDS drama Parting Glances (1986), Mystery Train (1989), In the Soup (1992), and his breakout role as Mr. Pink in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992).
Owen Cunningham Wilson is an American actor. He has frequently worked with filmmaker Wes Anderson, with whom he has shared writing and acting credits on the films Bottle Rocket (1996), Rushmore (1998), and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)—the latter received a nomination for the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay. He has also appeared in Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), The Darjeeling Limited (2007), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), and The French Dispatch (2021). Wilson also starred in the Woody Allen romantic comedy Midnight in Paris (2011) as unsatisfied screenwriter Gil Pender, a role which received a Golden Globe Award nomination. In 2014, he appeared in Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice and Peter Bogdanovich's She's Funny That Way.
Noah Baumbach is an American film director and screenwriter. He is known for making comedies set in New York City and his works are inspired by writer-directors such as Woody Allen and Whit Stillman. His frequent collaborators include Wes Anderson, Adam Driver, and his wife, Greta Gerwig.
Mads Dittmann Mikkelsen is a Danish actor, former gymnast and dancer. He rose to fame in Denmark as an actor for his roles such as Tonny in the first two films of the Pusher film trilogy, Detective Sergeant Allan Fischer in the television series Rejseholdet (2000–2004), Niels in Open Hearts (2002), Svend in The Green Butchers (2003), Ivan in Adam's Apples (2005) and Jacob Petersen in After the Wedding (2006).
Laura Elizabeth Dern is an American actress. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a BAFTA Award, and five Golden Globe Awards.
Virginie Efira is a Belgian and French actress. She had her first leading role in the romantic comedy It Boy (2013). Efira subsequently received critical praise for her performance in the comedy drama In Bed with Victoria (2016), for which she received a Magritte Award for Best Actress as well as a César Award for Best Actress nomination. She then appeared in Paul Verhoeven's psychological thriller Elle (2016), the drama An Impossible Love (2018), the comedy drama Sibyl (2019) and the black comedy Bye Bye Morons (2020). In 2023, she won a César Award for Best Actress for Paris Memories (2022).
Edward John Speleers is an English actor and producer. He is known for playing the title role in the 2006 film Eragon, antagonist Stephen Bonnet in the TV series Outlander and Jimmy Kent in the TV series Downton Abbey. He recently appeared as Rhys Montrose in the fourth season of You (2023) and Jack Crusher in the third season of Star Trek: Picard (2023).
Robert Anthony De Niro is an American actor and film producer. Known for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese, he is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential actors of his generation. De Niro is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. In 2009, De Niro received the Kennedy Center Honors, and earned a Presidential Medal of Freedom from U.S. President Barack Obama in 2016.
YorgosLanthimos is a Greek filmmaker. He has received multiple accolades, including a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for five Academy Awards.
Greta Celeste Gerwig is an American actress, writer, and director. Initially known for working on mumblecore films, she has since expanded from acting in and co-writing independent films to directing major studio films. Gerwig was included in the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world in 2018.
Yeun Sang-Yeop, known professionally as Steven Yeun, is an American actor. Yeun initially rose to prominence for playing Glenn Rhee in the television series The Walking Dead (2010–2016). He earned critical acclaim for starring in the thriller Burning (2018) and drama Minari (2020). The latter earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor, becoming the first Asian American actor to do so. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2021. In 2023, he starred in the dark comedy series Beef (2023), for which he won two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award.
Tye Kayle Sheridan is an American actor. He is known for playing the young Scott Summers / Cyclops in the X-Men film series (2016–2019) and for his starring role in the science fiction film Ready Player One (2018).
American actor Dustin Hoffman began his career by appearing in an episode of Naked City in 1961. His first theatrical performance was 1961's Shmem needs a shink as Ridzinski. Following several guest appearances on television, he starred in the 1966 play Eh?; his performance garnered him both a Theatre World Award and Drama Desk Award. Hoffman made his film debut in 1967 when he appeared in the comedy The Tiger Makes Out. In the same year, his breakthrough role as Benjamin "Ben" Braddock, the title character in Mike Nichols' comedy-drama The Graduate, led to Hoffman achieving star status and his first Academy Award nomination. He then acted in the play Jimmy Shine as the eponymous character and the comedy film Madigan's Millions. In 1969, he starred alongside Jon Voight in the Academy Award for Best Picture winner Midnight Cowboy, for which Hoffman was nominated a second time for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Jacob Tremblay is a Canadian actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including a Canadian Screen Award, a Critics' Choice Movie Award, and nominations for a SAG Award and three Saturn Awards.
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) is a 2017 American comedy-drama film directed and written by Noah Baumbach. The film stars Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman, Elizabeth Marvel and Emma Thompson, and follows a group of dysfunctional adult siblings trying to live in the shadow of their father.
Paterson is a 2016 drama film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. The film stars Adam Driver as a bus driver and poet named Paterson, and Golshifteh Farahani as his wife, who dreams of being a country music star and opening a cupcake business.
Brian Tyree Henry is an American actor. He rose to prominence for his role as rapper Alfred "Paper Boi" Miles in the FX comedy-drama series Atlanta (2016–2022), for which he received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
William Fitzgerald Harper, known professionally as William Jackson Harper, is an American actor and playwright. He gained acclaim for his role as Chidi Anagonye in the NBC comedy series The Good Place (2016–2020), for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
Marriage Story is a 2019 drama film written and directed by Noah Baumbach, who also produced the film with David Heyman. It stars Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver as a warring couple going through a coast-to-coast divorce. Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta, Julie Hagerty, and Merritt Wever appear in supporting roles.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)