Biography
Bearing an unconventional appeal that may have something to do with the slaphappy grin permanently stretched across his face, Breckin Meyer has made a name for himself playing characters that have an almost criminally laid-back attitude as their common denominator. Although he got his big break as endearing stoner Travis Birkenstock in
Amy Heckerling's 1995 comedy
Clueless, Meyer had been acting since he was 11 years old. Born in Minneapolis, MN, on May 7, 1974, Meyer was raised in Los Angeles, where he had early encounters with fame in the form of elementary school with
Drew Barrymore (in her autobiography, Little Girl Lost, she credited Meyer with giving her her first kiss when she was ten and he was 11) and high school with a host of young actors, including future
Clueless co-star
Alicia Silverstone. Meyer got his start in commercials and television, appearing on various shows, including
The Wonder Years. He had his rather inauspicious film debut in 1991, as one of the disposable teens in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, and had bit parts in various forgettable films and an appearance on Fox's
Party of Five before being cast in
Clueless.
Following the huge success of
Clueless, Meyer went on to appear in another teen movie,
The Craft (1996). After secondary roles in
Touch and
Prefontaine (both 1997), the actor had a fairly substantial part in
54, in which he got to play
Salma Hayek's husband and wear a very small pair of shorts. The film, which starred Meyer's real-life friend Ryan Phillippe, flopped with remarkable gusto, and Meyer's other film that year, the independent Dancer, Texas Pop. 81, was released without fanfare. However, the actor had success the following year as part of an ensemble cast that read like a Who's Who of Hollywood's Young and Employed in
Doug Liman's
Go. Playing a white boy who believes he's black at heart, Meyer won laughs for his part in the widely acclaimed film, and his appearance in the company of young notables such as
Katie Holmes,
Sarah Polley, and Scott Wolf went some way toward further establishing the actor's reputation as a noteworthy young talent.
A fine supporting player to this point in his fledgling career, Breckin would finally come into his own as the hapless college student racing cross country to intercept a decidedly questionable videotape in director
Todd Phillips's breakout comedy
Road Trip. Though a subsequent stab at the small screen as the lead in the sports comedy series
Inside Schwartz ultimately did little to advance Meyer's career, later roles in the theatrical comedies
Rat Race and
Kate and Leopold served well to keep the amiable comic talent in the public eye. After providing the voice for the eponymous wooden puppet in
Roberto Benigni's 2002 misfire
Pinocchio, Breckin helped to bring everyone's favorite comic-strip cat to the big screen with his role as the lasagne-loving feline's hapless master Jon Arbuckle in the 2004 family comedy
Garfield. Vocal work in such animated efforts as
King of the Hill and Robot Chicken found the actor earning his keep even when not stepping in front of the cameras, and in 2006 Meyer would return to the silver screen to the delight of children everywhere in the kid-friendly sequel Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide