- published: 05 Jun 2015
- views: 287944
John Paul Cusack (born June 28, 1966) is an American actor, producer and screenwriter. He has appeared in more than 50 films, including The Journey of Natty Gann, Say Anything..., Grosse Pointe Blank, The Thin Red Line, Con Air, Being John Malkovich, and 1408.
Cusack was born in Evanston, Illinois, to an Irish-American Catholic family. His mother, Ann Paula "Nancy" (née Carolan), is a former mathematics teacher and political activist. His father, Dick Cusack (1925–2003), was an actor, as are his siblings, Ann, Joan, Bill, and Susie. His father was also a documentary filmmaker, owned a film production company, and was a friend of activist Philip Berrigan. Cusack spent a year at New York University before dropping out, saying that he had "too much fire in [his] belly".
Cusack gained fame in the mid-1980s after 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. In 1989 he starred as Lloyd Dobler in Cameron Crowe's Say Anything.... His roles broadened in the late 1980s and early 1990s with more serious-minded fare such as the politically themed True Colors and the film noir thriller The Grifters. He was later offered the role of the title character of Fred in the film Drop Dead Fred, but dropped out due to a death in his family.