Biography
The son of actor/playwright
Jason Miller and the grandson of comedian
Jackie Gleason, the handsomely chiseled actor Jason Patric moved from New York City to California at the age of 16. Ever since his debut role as a drug-addicted teen for the ABC movie
Tough Love, the hunky actor has preferred to play intense characters. He would nearly perfect the sexy, brooding man in many serious dramas and thrillers throughout his career, while trying to maintain privacy by refusing to talk about himself in interviews. After the unsuccessful
Solarbabies, his gave his breakthrough performance in the teen classic
The Lost Boys as the reluctant vampire Michael. He then gained starring roles as a soldier in the war movie
The Beast and as an ex-boxer in the crime drama After Dark, My Sweet. Moving on to horror, he was chosen to portray Lord Byron in
Roger Corman's
Frankenstein Unbound. In 1991, he gained some critical recognition -- and a beard -- for his role as a drug-addicted narcotics officer in
Rush, opposite his moody counterpart
Jennifer Jason Leigh. The same year he was dragged into the tabloids for his affair with Hollywood sweetheart
Julia Roberts. She had broken off her engagement with
Kiefer Sutherland and ran off to Europe with Patric, causing a disruption to his enigmatic public persona. Taking some time off, he returned for Geronimo: An American Legend with
Gene Hackman and
Robert Duvall. He starred in the period piece
The Journey of August King, the romantic thriller
Incognito, and had a small part in
Sleepers before making a wild career turn for Speed 2: Cruise Control. However, it appears that starring in the action blockbuster was just a way to get some cash to fund his next project as actor and producer for
Neil LaBute's independent film Your Friends & Neighbors. After this brave venture, he sought out more experimental work, interpreting Anton Chekhov's plays in
3 Days of Rain and appearing in the documentary Scene Smoking: Cigarettes, Cinema, and the Myth of Cool. In 2002, Patric returned to the gritty world of undercover narcotics officers for
Narc with
Ray Liotta and Busta Rhymes. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide