Liev Schreiber Biography
Born: October 04, 1967
Displaying the kind of off-kilter charm that makes him a natural for leading roles in independent films and character parts in mainstream features, Liev Schreiber has made a name for himself on both circuits. Born October 4, 1967, in San Francisco, Schreiber was raised on New York's Lower East Side. A graduate of Hampshire College in Massachusetts, he initially wanted to become a writer, but later decided to try his hand at acting, training at both London's prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and the Yale School of Drama.
Schreiber's first acting job was on Broadway, where he appeared in +In the Summer House. More theater work followed and in 1994, the actor made his film debut in the Steve_Martin comedy Mixed_Nuts. The film was an unequivocal flop, although Schreiber's role as a rather muscular transvestite proved to be one of the picture's few memorable features.
His next project, the 1995 indie Denise_Calls_Up, fared a little better; despite almost non-existent box-office ratings, it was rewarded with critical approval. Following more minor film work, he landed the role of a British bouncer in the successful indie flick Party_Girl (1995), which also starred nascent indie queen Parker_Posey. Schreiber got an introduction to a more mainstream audience thanks to his role as killer Cotton Weary in Wes_Craven's mega-hit Scream, a role he reprised in the film's sequel, Scream_2 (1997). The same year, Schreiber had leading roles in two more independent films, The_Daytrippers (which again paired him with Posey) and Walking and Talking, as well as a secondary role in the bloated Mel_Gibson thriller Ransom.
Deftly straddling the divide between Sundance and the studio, Schreiber went on to make three major mainstream pictures in 1998: Phantoms, with Rose McGowan and Ben_Affleck; Twilight with Susan_Sarandon, Paul_Newman, and Gene_Hackman; and Sphere with Samuel_L._Jackson, Sharon_Stone, and Dustin_Hoffman. The following year, Schreiber returned to more familiar territory with his role in Tony_Goldwyn's small but successful drama A Walk on the Moon. As the man Diane_Lane cuckolds for Viggo_Mortensen, Schreiber mined endless possibilities from what could have been a narrow role, giving his character the sort of charming, good-intentioned inadequacy that became one of the actor's trademarks.
In 2000, Schreiber returned to the role of Cotton Weary a third time to close out the Scream franchise. It was around this time that he also began doing a considerable amount of voice-over work, mainly for PBS's NOVA series. As the decade progressed, Schreiber continued to be a presence in bigger mainstream projects, such as the 2002 adaptation of Tom_Clancy's The Sum of All Fears. Two years later, he could be seen in another high-profile, politically tinged thriller, this time opposite Denzel_Washington in director Jonathan_Demme's remake of The_Manchurian_Candidate.
In 2005 he made his directorial and screenwriting debut with Everything_Is_Illuminated, and appeared in the critically acclaimed, Golden Globe-winning HBO movie Lackawanna_Blues, a life-affirming film about a selfless black woman (played by S._Epatha_Merkerson) in 1950s segregated New York who provides a home and a guiding hand to the youths who come to live at her boarding house. His 2006 project would be quite a departure from this sweet, poignant tale, as Schreiber took the role of Robert Thorne in John_Moore's remake of the 1976 horror classic The_Omen. Heavily publicized for its "666" release date (June 6th, 2006), the film pleased horror fans, as did Schreiber's performance as husband to Julia_Stiles and father to the infamous Damien, a little boy who seems to harbor an evil that at best makes him disturbingly cold and at worst, places him at the crux of the devil's own plan for hell on Earth.
Schreiber next went into production on The_Painted_Veil, an adaptation of the novel by W._Somerset_Maugham. Playing the playboy whom Naomi_Watts cuckolds her husband with, the actor immersed himself in the part for the drama. Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
Browse More Actors:
