Everything about Ryan Phillipe totally explained
Matthew Ryan Phillippe (; born
September 10,
1974) is an American
actor. After appearing on the soap opera
One Life to Live, he came to fame in the late
1990s, starring in a string of teen-oriented films, including
I Know What You Did Last Summer,
Cruel Intentions, and
54. Phillippe's more recent roles include the 2005
Academy Award-winning
ensemble film Crash and the 2006 war drama
Flags of Our Fathers. In 2007 he starred in
Breach, a movie based on the true story of FBI Operative
Eric O'Neill who is assigned to shadow and help catch his boss,
Robert Hanssen, a spy for the
Soviet Union and
Russia, in the act of selling secret material.
Biography
Early life
Phillippe was born
Matthew Ryan Phillippe in
New Castle, Delaware, the son of Susan, who ran a
day care center in the family's house, and Richard Phillippe, who worked for
DuPont. He has three sisters, Kirsten, Lindsay and Katelyn. Phillippe attended New Castle Baptist Academy, where he played
basketball and
soccer, as well as earned a black belt in
Tae Kwon Do; he was also the
Yearbook Editor in his senior year. At the age of fifteen, he became interested in an acting career, inspired by a neighbor's suggestion. A casting agent spotted Phillippe in a barbershop two years later, and began sending him to auditions in
New York.
Career
Phillippe's acting career began with an appearance in
ABC daytime drama One Life to Live. His character Billy Douglas, whom he played from 1992 to 1993, was the first gay teenager in a daily soap opera, causing a stir. After leaving the show, Phillippe moved to
Los Angeles, where he appeared in a number of small parts in various television shows and
movies, including 1996s
White Squall.
Phillippe was cast in the 1997
horror film,
I Know What You Did Last Summer, which co-starred
Sarah Michelle Gellar,
Freddie Prinze, Jr. and
Jennifer Love Hewitt. The film was a success in October of that year, and led to Phillippe gaining wider renown and being cast in a few more high-profile films, including
54 in 1998 and 1999's
Cruel Intentions, a modern retelling of the
Choderlos de Laclos' novel,
Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The latter film, which also starred Phillippe's future wife,
Reese Witherspoon, as well as his
I Know What You Did Last Summer co-star,
Sarah Michelle Gellar, was a success among its intended teenage audience, cementing Phillippe's ability to play characters that require sex appeal.
In the years following, Phillippe appeared in the crime drama
The Way of the Gun, starred as a famed
software engineer in the thriller
Antitrust, and co-starred in
Robert Altman's critically-acclaimed
Gosford Park, which featured several of
Britain's most respected actors. Subsequently, Phillippe had supporting parts in the films
Igby Goes Down (2002) and
Crash (2005), which won the
Oscar for
Best Picture. His 2003 film,
The I Inside, premiered on cable.
In 2006, Phillippe played real-life Navy corpsman
John Bradley in the
war film Flags of Our Fathers, directed by
Clint Eastwood and following the journey of the United States Marines who lifted the flag at the battle of
Iwo Jima. Phillippe has said that the film was the "best experience" of his career because of its "personal meaning" to him, and that he'd have "given [his] life" to fight in
World War II, noting that both of his grandfathers fought in the war. Phillippe's role was positively received by film critic
Richard Roeper, who specified that he thought it was Phillippe's best performance to date. Phillippe's most recent role was in the thriller
Breach, in which he played
FBI investigator
Eric O'Neill opposite
Chris Cooper. He has since commented that he believes Cooper to be "the best actor America has to offer". He next starred in several 2007 and 2008 films, including
Chaos, in which he plays a police officer,
Five Fingers, a drama set in
Morocco, and the Iraqi war film
Stop-Loss, directed by
Kimberly Peirce.
Phillippe and his long-time friends
Breckin Meyer,
Seth Green, and David E. Siegal run a production company called Lucid Films. Phillippe is becoming more actively involved in his films as a producer. The following morning, Phillippe left
California to film
I Know What You Did Last Summer, and subsequently began a long-distance courtship with Witherspoon by
mail,
e-mail, and
telephone. When Phillippe returned to
Los Angeles, the couple continued dating and became engaged in December 1998. The following year, the pair starred in
Cruel Intentions together. Phillippe and Witherspoon married on June 5,
1999, in a small ceremony on a
plantation near
North Charleston, South Carolina.
On September 9, 1999, Phillippe and Witherspoon had a daughter named Ava Elizabeth, after Phillippe's grandmother. Their son, Deacon Reese (named after Phillippe's distant relative,
Deacon Phillippe, a
baseball player) was born on October 23, 2003. The family resided in a gated community in
Brentwood,
California.
On October 30, 2006, Phillippe and Witherspoon released a statement announcing that they'd decided to formally separate. After over seven years of marriage, Witherspoon filed for divorce from her husband on November 8, 2006, citing
irreconcilable differences. In light of the couple's lack of a
prenuptial agreement, she requested that the court refuse to grant
spousal support to Phillippe, and asked for joint legal custody and sole physical custody of the pair's two children. Phillippe filed for joint physical custody of the children on May 15, 2007. He didn't ask for spousal support, and didn't block Witherspoon from seeking it from him. Phillippe has stated that following the divorce filing, he was physically distraught over the ending of his marriage. The couple's divorce was finalized October 5, 2007, according to court documents.
Phillippe is an avid fan of
Philadelphia sports teams, most notably the
Eagles and
Phillies. He is also a longtime fan of
The Howard Stern Show, having attended the landmark mock funeral of rival Philadelphia disc jockey
John DeBella in the early nineties, ditching out of a school field trip to go to the funeral. During an appearance on March 20, 2008; he proclaimed himself a "big fan" of castmember
Artie Lange, saying that he could relate to Artie's personal struggles, which the rest of the cast found odd, contrasting Phillippe's movie star good looks and lifestyle with Artie's constant weight problems and depression issues. Nevertheless, Artie thanked him for the praise and added that he was a fan of several of Phillippe's movies; specifically
The Way Of The Gun and
Flags of our Fathers. Ryan also revealed that he'd paid $250 for a bust of
Wack Packer Beetlejuice's head but never received it, later in the show, Beetlejuice's manager called in saying that he'd "look into it." One week later, he'd attend an Artie Lange stand-up comedy performance in Los Angeles where he was invited backstage and cordially invited Stern staffer
J. D. Harmeyer (noted for his socially awkward, "nerdy" personal life) to go clubbing with his entourage.
Filmography
Further Information
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