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Ryan Phillippe extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Ryan Phillippe
Born	Matthew Ryan Phillippe September 10, 1974 (1974-09-10) (age 34) New Castle, Delaware, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1992–present
Spouse(s)	Reese Witherspoon (1999-2007)

Matthew Ryan Phillippe (born September 10, 1974), better known as Ryan Phillippe, 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.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Career 1.3 Personal life 2 Filmography 3 References 4 External links

Biography

Early life

Phillippe was born 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.¹ He has three sisters. 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 on a daytime soap opera, causing quite a stir. After leaving the show, Phillippe moved to Los Angeles, where he appeared in a number of small parts in various television series including Matlock, the tv mini-series The Secrets of Lake Success, and movies, including the 1995 film Crimson Tide and the 1996 film 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, and led to Phillippe gaining wider renown and being cast in a few more high-profile films, including 54 in 1998. In 1999 he starred in Cruel Intentions, a modern retelling of the Choderlos de Laclos novel, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, 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. It was a success among its intended teenage audience, cementing Phillippe's ability to play characters that require sex appeal. Phillippe can also be seen in the Marcy Playground music video "Comin' Up From Behind", which also appears on the film's soundtrack.

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 and was nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture. 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,² and that he would have "given [his] life" to fight in World War II, noting that both of his grandfathers fought in the war.³ Phillippe's role was positively received by film critic Richard Roeper, who specified that he thought it was Phillippe's best performance to date.⁴ Phillippe's next 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".⁵ He then starred in several 2007 and 2008 films, including Chaos, in which he plays a police officer, Five Fingers, a drama set in Morocco, Kimberly Pierce's Iraq war film Stop-Loss, and the futuristic story Franklyn. In March 2009, Phillippe began filming the Canadian/South African production The Bang Bang Club, which tells the real-life story of the Bang-Bang Club, four South African photographers whose images documented the bloody end of Apartheid. ⁶ Phillippe stars as Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Greg Marinovich. The film is set for a 2010 release.

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.³

Personal life

In 1997, Phillippe attended a party given for actress Reese Witherspoon's 21st birthday. Upon meeting Witherspoon, Phillippe was reported to have spent all night talking to the young actress, with Witherspoon telling Phillippe, "I think you're my birthday present."⁷ The following morning, Phillippe left California to film I Know What You Did Last Summer in North Carolina, 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 had decided to formally separate.⁸ After over seven years of marriage, Witherspoon filed for divorce from her husband on November 8, 2006, citing irreconcilable differences.⁹ 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, and did not seek any spousal support.¹⁰ The couple's divorce was finalized October 5, 2007, according to court documents. The couple share joint custody of their children.¹¹. Phillippe dated Nikki Reed for a short period of a time. Phillippe is currently dating Australian actress Abbie Cornish whom he met in 2006 while filming Stop-Loss.¹² Cornish was widely reported to be the "other woman" that ended Phillippe's 7-year marriage, though neither Witherspoon nor Phillippe has substantiated these rumours.¹³

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, and has become friendly with staff members Artie Lange and media editor J. D. Harmeyer, known for his socially awkward personality and "nerdy" lifestyle.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role
1995	Crimson Tide	Seaman Grattam
1996	White Squall	Gil Martin
1997	Little Boy Blue	Jimmy West
	I Know What You Did Last Summer	Barry William Cox
1998	54	Shane O'Shea
	Playing by Heart	Keenan
	Homegrown	Harlan Dykstra
1999	Cruel Intentions	Sebastian Valmont
2000	The Way of the Gun	Parker
2001	AntiTrust	Milo Hoffman
	Company Man	Petrov
	Gosford Park	Henry Denton
2002	Igby Goes Down	Oliver 'Ollie' Slocumb
2003	The i Inside	Simon Cable
2005	Crash	Officer Tommy Hanson
2006	Flags of Our Fathers	John Bradley
	Five Fingers	Martijn
	Chaos	Det. Shane Dekker
2007	Breach	Eric O'Neill
2008	Stop-Loss	SSG Brandon King
2009	Franklyn	Jonathan Preest

References

External links

• Ryan Phillippe at the Internet Movie Database
• Ryan Phillippe at People.com

v • d • e Cruel Intentions Films Cruel Intentions · 2 · 3 Music Cruel Intentions (soundtrack) Cast Sarah Michelle Gellar · Amy Adams · Kristina Anapau · Ryan Phillippe · Robin Dunne · Kerr Smith · Reese Witherspoon · Sean Patrick Thomas · Selma Blair Writers Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (original writer) · Roger Kumble Related Novel Les Liaisons dangereuses (original novel) Films Les liaisons dangereuses (1959 film) · Dangerous Liaisons · Valmont · Untold Scandal · Les liaisons dangereuses (2003 film) · Michael Lucas' Dangerous Liaisons