Biography
John Cusack began acting in childhood. He attended
the Piven Theatre Workshop in Chicago and he did many
voice-overs for commercials and appeared in some stage
productions by the age of 12. His first film was the
comedy Class in 1983. In 1988, he founded a theatre
group ("The New Criminals"), for which he has directed
several productions.
After success at an early age as the star of several
teen-oriented films, Cusack has generally sought roles
which cast him as an ethically conflicted everyman. He
is often cast as an anti-hero who can be very neurotic,
but has played a wide variety of characters. He
frequently appears in films with members of his family
(particularly Joan) and with Jeremy Piven, whose
parents, Byrne and Joyce Piven, founded and continue to
run the Piven Theatre Workshop.
After playing mostly character roles for a number of
years, John Cusack became an A-list star in 1997 with
the black comedy Grosse Pointe Blank (which he also
co-wrote and produced) and the action movie Con Air,
both of which were very commercially successful. He
continues to choose roles in movies outside the
mainstream, however, such as Being John Malkovich and
High Fidelity which is largely considered to be a
definitive role for the actor, as a record store owner
with too many relationship hangups. Among some of the
films he has turned down include Indecent Proposal and
Apollo 13. He auditioned for The Breakfast Club and
Willow early on in his career.
John Cusack spent a year at New York University before
dropping out, reasoning that he had "too much fire in my
belly".
Since May 2005 he's been a contributing blogger at The
Huffington Post.
John Cusack is not married, but has been romantically linked to a
number of women. John Cusack is fiercely protective of
his private life and rarely makes public appearances
between his films or events. He has said that "celebrity
is the worst thing that can happen to an actor."
Film List
- American dog (2008)
- The Contract (2005) **filming
- The Martian Child (2005) **post-production
- The Ice Harvest (2005) as Charlie Arglist
- Must Love dogs (2005) as Jake
- Runaway Jury (2003) as Nicholas Easter
- Identity (2003) as Ed
- Max (2002) as Max Rothman
- Serendipity (2001) as Jonathan Trager
- America's Sweethearts (2001) as actor Eddie Thomas
- High Fidelity (2000) as record store owner Rob Gordon
- Cradle Will Rock (1999) as Nelson Rockefeller
- Being John Malkovich (1999) as Craig Schwartz
- Pushing Tin (1999) as Nick Falzone
- The Jack Bull (1999) as Myrl Redding
- The Thin Red Line (1998) as Captain John Gaff
- Anastasia (1997)(voice) Dimitri
- Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) as reporter John Kelso
- Con Air (1997) as U.S. Marshal Vince Larkin
- Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) as hitman Martin Q. Blank
- City Hall (1996) as Deputy Mayor Kevin Calhoun
- The Road To Wellville (1994) as Charles Ossining
- Bullets Over Broadway (1994) as David Shayne
- Money For Nothing (1993) as Joey Coyle
- Map of the Human Heart (1993) as The Mapmaker
- Bob Roberts (1992) as Cutting Edge Host
- Shadows and Fog (1992) as Student Jack
- True Colors (1991) as Peter Burton
- The Grifters (1990) as Roy Dillon
- Say Anything... (1989) as Lloyd Dobler
- Fat Man and Little Boy (1989) as Michael Merriman
- Tapeheads (1988) as Ivan Alexeev
- Eight Men Out (1988) as baseball player Buck Weaver
- Hot Pursuit (1987) as Dan Bartlett
- Stand By Me (1986) as Denny Lachance
- One Crazy Summer (1986) as Hoops McCann
- Better Off Dead... (1985) as Lane Meyer
- The Journey of Natty Gann (1985)
- The Sure Thing (1985) as college student Walter "Gib" Gibson
- Sixteen Candles (1984) as Bryce
- Grandview, U.S.A. (1984) as Johnny Maine
- Class (1983) as Roscoe Maibaum