| John C. Reilly  AKA John Christopher Reilly
Born: 24-May-1965
Birthplace: Chicago, IL
Gender: Male
Religion: Roman Catholic
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Boogie Nights, Magnolia John C. Reilly looks like he could be a beer truck delivery driver, or a pizza chef, a policeman, a lawyer, anything but a movie star. He is a homely schlump who seems the living embodiment of "everyman," and he is one of the cinema's most versatile character actors, believable as a thug or a cop, a monk or a madman.
Reilly was raised in a working-class Chicago neighborhood, attended an all-boys Catholic school, and says he "grew up in musicals." He became interested in acting as a young boy, performing in community plays from the age of eight. Through high school and into his college years he was a familiar presence in Chicago-area stage productions and, of course, school plays. While attending DePaul University, he wrote and performed for Chicago's Organic Theatre, then worked with the famous Steppenwolf Theater.
He made his feature film debut playing a particularly savage soldier in Casualties of War with Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn. He has disappeared into dozens of movie roles since, and it is more than coincidental than many of Reilly's movies have been excellent. He played Johnny Depp's pal in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, a porn performer seemingly modeled on Ron Jeremy in Boogie Nights with Mark Wahlberg, the laconic Sergent Storm in Terrence Malick's Thin Red Line, Kevin Costner's catcher in For the Love of the Game, the real estate agent who leased Jennifer Connelly a wet apartment in Dark Water, a singing cowboy in Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion, and Will Ferrell's clueless buddy in Talladega Nights.
He played cops in Woody Allen's Shadow and Fog, Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, Stephen King's Dolores Claiborne, and Boys with Winona Ryder, criminals in State of Grace with Sean Penn, The River Wild with Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon, Gangs of New York with Daniel Day-Lewis, and Criminal with Diego Luna. He played the lunkhead husband of Renée Zellweger in Chicago, and of Jennifer Aniston in The Good Girl. He had a rare but memorable lead as a chronic gambler in the superb but little-seen Hard Eight with Philip Baker Hall.
He debuted on Broadway in The Grapes of Wrath with Gary Sinise in 1990, and returned in 2000 to co-star with Philip Seymour Hoffman in Sam Shepard's True West. In a remarkable show of theatrical bravado, Hoffman and Reilly switched roles from night to night during the play's run — and both actors were Tony-nominated.
Reilly has never been an outspoken activist for animal rights, but in 2004 he quit his role in Manderlay in disgust when a donkey was intentionally killed on the set, its death filmed for the movie. Reilly's part was re-cast, and in the hubbub of bad publicity the animal's death was left on the cutting room floor.
He has occasionally played drums in Tenacious D as "Sasquatch". Wife: Alison Dickey (film producer)
Sister: Pam Wellner (sister-in-law, Greenpeace staffer)
High School: Brother Rice High School, Mount Greenwood, IL (1983)
University: BFA Drama, DePaul University (1987)
Dean for America
Greenpeace
Tenacious D Sasquatch
Irish Ancestry Paternal
Lithuanian Ancestry Maternal
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Step Brothers (25-Jul-2008)
The Promotion (9-Mar-2008)
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (21-Dec-2007)
Year of the Dog (20-Jan-2007)
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (4-Aug-2006)
A Prairie Home Companion (12-Feb-2006)
Dark Water (8-Jul-2005)
The Aviator (17-Dec-2004)
Criminal (12-Jun-2004)
The Hours (18-Dec-2002)
Chicago (10-Dec-2002)
Gangs of New York (9-Dec-2002)
The Good Girl (12-Jan-2002)
The Anniversary Party (23-May-2001)
The Perfect Storm (26-Jun-2000)
Magnolia (8-Dec-1999)
For Love of the Game (15-Sep-1999)
Never Been Kissed (9-Apr-1999)
The Settlement (1999)
The Thin Red Line (25-Dec-1998)
Chicago Cab (14-Mar-1998)
Boogie Nights (8-Oct-1997)
Boys (10-May-1996)
Hard Eight (20-Jan-1996)
Georgia (19-May-1995)
Dolores Claiborne (24-Mar-1995)
The River Wild (30-Sep-1994)
What's Eating Gilbert Grape (17-Dec-1993)
Hoffa (25-Dec-1992)
Out on a Limb (4-Sep-1992)
Shadows and Fog (30-Mar-1992)
State of Grace (14-Sep-1990)
Days of Thunder (27-Jun-1990)
We're No Angels (15-Dec-1989)
Casualties of War (18-Aug-1989)
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