Ellar Coltrane | |
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![]() Coltrane in April 2015 | |
Born | Ellar Coltrane Kinney Salmon [1] August 27, 1994 Austin, Texas, U.S. |
Occupation | Actor |
Years active | 2002–present |
Ellar Coltrane Kinney Salmon (born August 27, 1994) is an American actor. They are best known for their role as Mason Evans Jr. in Richard Linklater's film Boyhood , for which they won the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer. [2]
Coltrane was born in Austin, Texas, to Genevieve (née Kinney), an equine-assisted therapist for autistic people, [3] and Bruce Salmon, a musician. [4] Their parents divorced when they were nine, and their mother subsequently remarried. [5] Coltrane's half-sister, Evelyn, was born when they were 11. [3] [4]
In 2001, at age six, Coltrane was cast by filmmaker Richard Linklater to play the title character in the film Boyhood ; Linklater wanted to make an unprecedented film that would show a boy's coming of age, but with the actors growing up or aging on screen. Coltrane and other members of the cast were filmed intermittently for several days at a time between May 2002 and August 2013, by which time Coltrane had turned 19; there were 45 days of filming altogether. [6] During Coltrane's childhood, they also appeared in various other films, including a small role in Linklater's 2006 film Fast Food Nation . [7]
In 2016, Coltrane appeared in the Barack Obama drama film Barry , which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. [8] The following year, they co-starred with Emma Watson in James Ponsoldt's film adaptation of the Dave Eggers novel The Circle (2017), which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. [9]
Coltrane has spoken of their discomfort with binary gender roles: "For me, the binary gender demarcation always has felt just kind of like ... a charade, like this character that I have to play." [10] Additionally, they have expressed a preference to be identified with singular "they/them" pronouns.
Year | Film | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2002 | Lone Star State of Mind | Young Earl Crest | |
2005 | Faith & Bullets | Thomas Chaney Jr. | |
2006 | Fast Food Nation | Jay Anderson | |
2009 | Hallettsville | Young Tyler Jensen | |
2014 | Boyhood | Mason Evans Jr. | Filmed from 2002–2013 |
2016 | Barry | Will | |
2017 | The Circle | Mercer Regalado | |
The Last Movie Star | Shane McAvoy | ||
Blood Money | Victor | ||
2018 | The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot | "The Clerk" | |
2019 | Summer Night | Jameson Ford | |
2020 | The Good Lord Bird | Salmon Brown | |
2021 | El Fantasma | Lee Harvey Oswald | |
2021 | Shoplifters of the World | Dean |