John Cusack : The most underrated actors
Cusack was born in Evanston, Illinois to an Irish American Catholic family. His father, Dick Cusack (1925-2003), as well as his siblings Ann, Bill, Joan, and Susie have also been actors; his father was also a documentary filmmaker, owned a film production company and was a friend of activist Philip Berrigan. Cusack’s mother, Nancy, is a former mathematics teacher and political activist. Cusack spent a year at New York University before dropping out, saying that he had “too much fire in [his] belly”.
Cusack first became famous in the mid-1980s for appearing in teen movies such as Better Off Dead, The Sure Thing , One Crazy Summer, and Sixteen Candles. Cusack made a cameo in the 1988 music video for “Trip At The Brain” by Suicidal Tendencies. His biggest success in that genre is arguably his starring role as Lloyd Dobler in Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything. He began broadening his choice of roles in the late 1980s and early 1990s with more serious-minded fare, such as the political satire True Colors and the noir thriller The Grifters.
Cusack became a proven box office success with his roles in the black comedy Grosse Pointe Blank and the Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster Con Air. He has since chosen a diverse range of roles, such as an obsessive puppeteer in Being John Malkovich, a lovelorn record store owner in High Fidelity, and a Jewish art dealer mentoring a young Adolf Hitler in Max. He appeared as a terrified writer in the horror film 1408, based on Stephen King’s short story of the same name. He will next appear as a widowed father in the Iraq War-themed drama Grace is Gone and as assassin Brand Hauser in the dark political satire, War, Inc., along with Hilary Duff and his sister Joan.
His sister Joan and his close friend Jeremy Piven have appeared in many of his films. John and Joan Cusack appeared as two geeks in Sixteen Candles: John as one of Farmer Ted’s henchmen, and Joan as the geek with the neck brace. Joan and John also appear together in the 2007 movie The Martian Child, as well as High Fidelity, Grosse Pointe Blank, and Say Anything.
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McGregor was born in the Perth Royal Infirmary, and was brought up in the nearby small town of Crieff, Scotland and went to Morrisons Academy. His mother, Carol Diane (née Lawson), is a teacher and school administrator, and his father, James Charles Stuart McGregor, is a physical education teacher. His mother is the sister of actor Denis Lawson, the sister-in-law of the late actress Sheila Gish, and the aunt of Lou Gish. McGregor attended Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1988 to study drama. Six months before graduating, he won a leading role in Dennis Potter’s six-part BBC series Lipstick on Your Collar, and has been working steadily ever since. He made his feature film debut in 1993 in Bill Forsyth’s Being Human. The following year, he earned widespread praise and won an Empire Award for his performance in the thriller Shallow Grave, which marked his first collaboration with director Danny Boyle. His major international breakthrough soon followed with the role of heroin addict Mark Renton in Boyle’s film version of Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting (1996)
Christian Bale was born in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales. He is the youngest of four children. His parents are entrepreneur, commercial pilot and talent manager David Bale and circus clown and performer Jenny James, both English. Bale spent his childhood in several countries, including the United Kingdom, Portugal, and the United States. He lived in a house boat for a small amount of time. In 1976, when Christian was two years old, the Bale family left Wales. Bale’s family settled for four years in Bournemouth, where he attended Bournemouth School and participated actively in rugby. Christian has described his childhood, with respect to his mother being in the circus, as interesting. He recalled his first kiss was with an acrobat named Barta. As a child, he trained in ballet and on guitar. His sister Louise’s work in theatre also influenced his decision to become an actor. David Bale was very supportive of Christian’s acting. He resigned from his job as a commercial pilot to travel and manage Christian’s burgeoning career. David Bale, later married feminist icon Gloria Steinem on September 3, 2000. He died on December 30, 2003, from brain lymphoma at the age of 62.
Norris was born in Ryan, Oklahoma, the son of Wilma (Scarberry), who was eighteen when Norris was born, and Ray Norris, a truck and bus driver and mechanic. Norris’s paternal grandfather (an immigrant) and maternal grandmother were Irish, while his paternal grandmother and maternal grandfather were Cherokee Native Americans. Norris was named after Carlos Berry, his father’s minister. He has two younger brothers, Weiland (deceased) and Aaron (a Hollywood producer). When Norris was ten, his parents divorced, and he later relocated to Prairie Village, Kansas and then Torrance, California with his mother and brothers. Norris describes his childhood as downbeat. He was nonathletic, shy, and scholastically mediocre. Other children taunted him about his mixed ethnicity, and Norris daydreamed about beating up his tormentors. Norris mentioned in his autobiography that his father had a very serious problem with drinking and “wasn’t there” a lot for him growing up. Norris admitted that he loved his father but did not like him. However, he professed that he only felt pity for the man because “that was just how he was, and he missed so much.”
