Often likened to River Phoenix and Leonardo DiCaprio for his boyish looks and his penchant for intense, thoughtful young adult characters, Emile Hirsch began his career as a teen guest in television dramas before earning a solid dramatic reputation in indie films. Following an acclaimed starring role in “The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys” (2002), Hirsch brought believable coming-of-age complexity and considerable charisma to the fact-based crime drama “Alpha Dog” (2007) and turned in an astounding performance as a peripatetic young idealist in Sean Penn’s “Into the Wild” (2007), for which he topped critics’ year-end lists and earned a Best Actor nomination from the Screen Actor’s Guild. His starring role in 2008’s “Speed Racer” promised to launch Hirsch into mass market fame for his portrayal of the classic Japanese cartoon character.Emile Hirsch was born on March 13, 1985 and spent his early years in Topanga Canyon, a historically bohemian enclave in Los Angeles. When his parents split, he moved to New Mexico with his mother, where the middle school student who memorized Brando lines just for fun, got a show biz break in a local commercial. By his preteens, he was serious about acting, beginning to land appearances, first on comedies that included "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" (ABC, 1996-2003), "Third Rock from the Sun" (NBC, 1995-2001) and "Two of a Kind" (ABC, 1998-99), before taking a turn to the dramatic with episodes of "NYPD Blue" (ABC, 1993-2005) and "ER" (NBC, 1994- ). Hirsch’s acting career kicked into full gear in 1998, when he landed a role as young Houdini in the movie-of-the-week, "Houdini" (TNT, 1998) and went on to star in "Gargantua" (Fox, 1998), a Jurassic Park-like tale that brought the 13-year-old actor to the Australian rainforest opposite Adam Baldwin and a large mechanical monster.
Hirsch made a major jump to the big screen in Jodie Foster’s indie "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" (2002), receiving positive reviews for playing one of two rebellious teens – the other played by Kieran Culkin – who fight boredom, hormones and the discipline of their parish school. In another period piece, Hirsch appeared opposite heavy hitter Kevin Kline in "The Emperor’s Club" (2002), starring as the son of a West Virginia senator who challenges his father’s cloistered world of tradition through a turbulent battle of wills; the repercussions of which, are felt a quarter century later. Hirsch followed up the pair of indie dramas with the lighthearted “The Girl Next Door” (2004), a comedic look at love, growing up and the porn industry, starring Elisha Cuthbert. The film opened to sub-par box office, barely raking in $6 million, despite its "Risky Business" style approach.
In the offbeat "Mudge Boy" (2004), Hirsch earned positive notices for playing a young man who becomes unhinged in the wake of his mother's unexpected death. The drama “Imaginary Heroes” (2005) also dealt with family death, but revolved around the surviving son’s relationship with his unconventional mother, played by Sigourney Weaver. Despite positive critical reviews, the film only received limited release. “Lords of Dogtown” (2005), however, went wide, and starred Hirsch as Jay Adams, the enigmatic real-life skateboarder who revolutionized the sport in the mid-1970s, but lost out on potential fame and fortune when drugs and partying landed him behind bars. A former teenage “skate rat” himself, Hirsch received some fine notices for his charismatic portrayal of Adams, but the film was an overall financial flop and co-star A-lister Heath Ledger received the majority of the press. He fared considerably better at the box office in 2007’s “Alpha Dog,” a fact-based chronicle of a cocky, upper-class 15-year-old, whose drug dealing thug life made headlines after the kidnap and murder of another teen in 2000.
With the film adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s “Into the Wild” (2007), however, Hirsch finally earned the overwhelming accolades of critics and audiences alike. He headlined in the true chronicle of a literary and philosophical 23-year-old post-grad who gives away his worldly possessions and sets off on a mission to live off the land in remote Alaska, despite the concerns of his family. Hirsch soared in the role of the young idealist curiously hitchhiking his way across country, often being tasked with maintaining audience interest as the only character in any given scene — hiking, rafting, exploring, and growing up in solitude. The Sean Penn-directed film topped critics’ lists that year, with its outstanding young star earning Best Actor nominations from the Screen Actors Guild and the Broadcast Film Critics Awards.
Following Hirsch’s supporting role as a rising young member of a corrupt crime family in the little-seen pastiche “The Air I Breathe” (2008), he was poised for mainstream breakout as the auto-racing star of “Speed Racer” (2008). Like “Into the Wild,” the Wachowski Brothers’ highly anticipated adaptation of the 1960s animated TV series and cult favorite often found Hirsch acting solo in scene, but this time against a green screen in an effort to achieve the lifelike anime style.
