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Ryan Phillippe

Ryan PhillippeAKA Matthew Ryan Philippe

Born: 10-Sep-1974
Birthplace: New Castle, DE

Gender: Male
Religion: Protestant
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Little Boy Blue

Ryan Phillippe grew up just south of Philadelphia, played basketball in high school, and holds a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. He was 'discovered' when he happened to stop for a haircut at the same barbershop where an agent was getting a trim. In Phillippe's first professional role, he played Billy the gay teenager on One Life to Live in the early 1990s. Raised in a religious, sheltered environment, Phillippe says that while it was not like "coming out" if he were actually gay, it was difficult telling his father he would be playing gay on TV.

One Life to Live was filmed in New York, but after more than a year on the soap opera Phillippe left for Hollywood. With no friends and no car, he took public transit to auditions, or sometimes skateboarded. He was in a few TV movies, then made his big screen debut as a sailor in Crimson Tide with Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington. His breakthrough role came in the hit slasher movie I Know What You Did Last Summer with Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze, Jr..

In his best leading roles, he played the abused trailer-trash teen in Little Boy Blue with Nastassja Kinski, a preppy Valmont in Cruel Intentions with Sarah Michelle Gellar, the Navy medic who helped hoist the flag at Iwo Jima in Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers, and an American soldier gone AWOL from Iraq in Stop Loss with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. In smaller but memorable supporting roles, he played a young fraud in Gosford Park with Maggie Smith, a rookie cop in Crash with Matt Dillon, and a blue-haired fellow infatuated with Angelina Jolie in Playing by Heart.

With longtime friends Breckin Meyer and Seth Green, he founded Lucid Films, an independent filmmaking company. Phillippe and Meyer shared a bristling kiss in 54, and their company's most successful project so far was The Uncertainty Principle, a documentary about physics.

Father: Richard Phillippe (chemical technician)
Mother: Susan Phillippe (day care worker)
Sister: Kirsten Phillippe
Sister: Lindsay Phillippe
Sister: Katelyn Phillippe
Wife: Reese Witherspoon (actress, together 1997-99, m. 5-Jun-1999, sep. Nov-2006, div. 5-Oct-2007)
Daughter: Ava Elizabeth Phillippe (b. 9-Sep-1999 with Witherspoon)
Son: Deacon Phillippe (b. 23-Oct-2003 with Witherspoon)
Girlfriend: Abbie Cornish (actress, cohabited 2007-10)
Girlfriend: Alexis Knapp (cohabited 2010-11, one daughter)
Daughter: Kai (b. 1-Jul-2011)

    High School: New Castle Baptist Academy, New Castle, DE (1992)

    Friends of Hillary

    TELEVISION
    One Life to Live Billy Douglas (1992-93)

    FILMOGRAPHY AS DIRECTOR
    Catch Hell (10-Oct-2014)

    FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
    Wish Upon (7-Jul-2017)
    Return to Sender (22-May-2015)
    Catch Hell (10-Oct-2014)
    Straight A's (16-Jan-2013)
    Setup (20-Sep-2011)
    The Lincoln Lawyer (17-Mar-2011) · Louis Roulet
    The Bang Bang Club (15-Sep-2010) · Greg
    MacGruber (15-Mar-2010) · Piper
    Franklyn (16-Oct-2008) · Preest
    Stop-Loss (13-Mar-2008)
    Breach (12-Feb-2007)
    Flags of Our Fathers (20-Oct-2006)
    Five Fingers (1-May-2006) · Martijn
    Chaos (18-Jan-2006)
    Crash (10-Sep-2004)
    The I Inside (2003) · Simon Cable
    Igby Goes Down (23-May-2002)
    Gosford Park (7-Nov-2001) · Henry Denton
    AntiTrust (12-Jan-2001) · Milo Hoffman
    The Way of the Gun (8-Sep-2000) · Parker
    Company Man (3-May-2000)
    Cruel Intentions (5-Mar-1999) · Sebastian Valmont
    Playing by Heart (30-Dec-1998)
    54 (28-Aug-1998)
    Homegrown (17-Apr-1998)
    I Know What You Did Last Summer (17-Oct-1997) · Barry Cox
    Little Boy Blue (Jun-1997)
    Nowhere (9-May-1997)
    White Squall (2-Feb-1996) · Gil Martin
    Invader (1996)
    Crimson Tide (12-May-1995)
    Deadly Invasion: The Killer Bee Nightmare (28-Feb-1995)


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