Billy Crudup

William Gaither “Billy” Crudup (ˈkruːdəp; born July 8, 1968) is an American Tony Award-winning actor of film and stage. He is well known for his roles as guitarist Russell Hammond in Almost Famous, Will Bloom in Big Fish and Doctor Manhattan in the upcoming 2009 film Watchmen.

Biography

Early life

Crudup was born in Manhasset, New York, the grandson of Billy Gaither, a well-known Florida trial lawyer. His parents divorced during his childhood, and later remarried, before divorcing a second time. Crudup has two brothers: Tommy, an executive producer, and Brooks, also a producer. He left New York with his family when he was about eight years old, first living in Texas, then in Florida. He graduated from Saint Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1986.

Crudup attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received an undergraduate degree, and he continued his passion for acting with the undergraduate acting company, Lab!Theatre. He was a member of the Beta Chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon. He then studied at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts in 1994. A year after graduating, he made his debut on Broadway in the Lincoln Center Theater production of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia.

Career

Crudup began acting in such films as 1996's Sleepers and 1997's Inventing the Abbotts. While he has appeared in many films, he regularly returns to the stage. His first role in an animated feature was in 1999's English release of Princess Mononoke, in which he starred as Ashitaka. He then played Russell Hammond, the lead guitarist of the fictional band Stillwater in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (2000). He has also been the voice of MasterCard "Priceless" commercials in the U.S. since 1997, making his first appearance in an ad in 2005. In 2006's The Good Shepherd, he played British spy Arch Cummings, a stand-in for Kim Philby.

Crudup received a Tony Award nomination for his performance in The Elephant Man on Broadway, as well as for his role as Katurian in the Broadway production of The Pillowman, also starring Jeff Goldblum, which closed on September 18, 2005. From October 2006 through May 2007, he was featured in the first two parts of The Coast of Utopia by Tom Stoppard at Lincoln Center, playing literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, for which he received another Tony Award nomination and subsequent win.

Crudup is currently filming Watchmen with director Zack Snyder in Vancouver, Canada. He is portraying the iconic superhero Doctor Manhattan.

He is on the Board of Directors for The Actors Center in New York City.

Personal life

From 1996 to November 2003, Crudup dated actress Mary-Louise Parker, with whom he had a son, William Atticus Parker, born on January 7, 2004. Crudup left Parker while she was seven months pregnant. Widespread speculation was that Crudup left Parker for his Stage Beauty co-star Claire Danes. In 2004, Danes and Crudup confirmed that they were dating, but denied the press reports that they were together at the time of Crudup's split with Parker. In December 2006, the couple split after Danes was seen together with her Evening co-star Hugh Dancy.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1996	Sleepers	Tommy Marcano
1996	Everyone Says I Love You	Ken
1997	Inventing the Abbotts	John Charles "Jacey" Holt
	Grind	Eddie Dolan
	Princess Mononoke	Ashitaka	(voice: English version)
1998	Monument Ave. (originally titled Snitch)	Teddy Timmons
	Without Limits	Steve Prefontaine
	The Hi-Lo Country	Pete Calder
1999	Jesus' Son	FH
2000	Waking the Dead	Fielding Pierce
2000	Almost Famous	Russell Hammond
2001	World Traveler	Cal
2001	Charlotte Gray	Julien Levade
2002	AKA Birdseye	Unknown big role
2003	Big Fish	Will Bloom
2004	Stage Beauty	Ned Kynaston
2005	Trust the Man	Tobey
2006	Mission: Impossible III	IMF Operations Director Musgrave
2006	The Good Shepherd	Arch Cummings
2007	Dedication	Henry
2008	Pretty Bird	Unknown
2009	Watchmen	Doctor Manhattan	post-production
2009	Public Enemies	J. Edgar Hoover	post-production