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Ryan Phillippe (born Matthew Ryan Phillippe on September 10, 1974) is an American actor. After appearing on the soap opera One Life to Live, he came to fame in the late 1990s, after starring in a string of teen-oriented films, including I Know What You Did Last Summer, Cruel Intentions, and 54. Phillippe's more recent roles include the 2005 Academy Award-winning ensemble film Crash and the 2006 war drama Flags of Our Fathers. In 2007 Matthew stared in "Breach" a movie based on the true story, FBI upstart Eric O'Neill enters into a power game with his boss, Robert Hanssen, an agent who was ultimately convicted of selling secrets to the Soviet Union.
Early life
Phillippe (IPA pronunciation: ) was born in New Castle, Delaware to Richard Phillippe, a chemical technician for DuPont, and Susan, who ran a day care center in the family's house. He has three sisters, Kirsten, Lindsay and Katelyn. Phillippe was raised in the Catholic religion and attended New Castle Baptist Academy, where he played basketball and soccer, as well as earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do; he was also the Yearbook Editor in his senior year. At the age of fifteen, he became interested in an acting career, inspired by a neighbor's suggestion. A casting agent spotted Phillippe in a barbershop two years later, and began sending him to auditions in New York.
Career
Phillippe's acting career began with an appearance in ABC daytime drama One Life to Live. His character Billy Douglas, whom he played from 1992 to 1993, was the first gay teenager in a daily soap opera, causing a stir. After leaving the show, Phillippe moved to Los Angeles, where he appeared in a number of small parts in various television shows and movies, including 1996s White Squall.
Phillippe was cast in the 1997 horror film, I Know What You Did Last Summer, which co-starred Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt. The film was a success in October of that year, and led to Phillippe gaining wider renown and being cast in a few more high-profile films, including 54 in 1998 and 1999's Cruel Intentions, a modern retelling of the Choderlos de Laclos' novel, Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The latter film, which also starred Phillippe's future wife, Reese Witherspoon, as well as his I Know What You Did Last Summer co-star, Sarah Michelle Gellar, was a success among its intended teenage audience, cementing Phillippe's ability to play characters that require sex appeal.
In the years following, Phillippe appeared in the crime drama The Way of the Gun, starred as a famed software engineer in the thriller Antitrust, and co-starred in Robert Altman's critically-acclaimed Gosford Park, which featured several of Britain's most respected actors. Subsequently, Phillippe had supporting parts in the films Igby Goes Down (2002) and Crash (2005), which won the Oscar for Best Picture. His 2003 film, The I Inside, premiered on cable. Phillippe and his long-time friends Breckin Meyer, Seth Green, and David E. Siegal run a production company called Lucid Films. Phillippe is becoming more actively involved in his films as a producer.
In 2006, Phillippe played real-life military medical corpsman John Bradley in the war film Flags of Our Fathers, directed by Clint Eastwood and following the journey of the men who lifted the flag at the battle of Iwo Jima. Phillippe has said that the film was the "best experience" of his career because of its "personal meaning" to him, and that he would have "given life" to fight in World War II, noting that both of his grandfathers fought in the war. Phillippe's role was positively received by film critic Richard Roeper, who specified that he thought it was Phillippe's best performance to date. Phillippe's most recent role was in the thriller Breach, in which he played FBI investigator Eric O'Neill opposite Chris Cooper. He has also completed filming on a number of films to be released in 2007, including Chaos, in which he plays a police officer, Five Fingers, a drama set in Morocco, and a war-themed film directed by Kimberly Peirce.
Personal life
In 1997, Phillippe attended a party given for actress Reese Witherspoon's 21st birthday. Upon meeting Witherspoon, Phillippe was immediately mesmerized and spent all night talking to the young actress, with Witherspoon telling Phillippe "I think you're my birthday present". The following morning, Phillippe left California to film I Know What You Did Last Summer, and subsequently began a long-distance courtship with Witherspoon by mail, e-mail, and telephone. When Phillippe returned to Los Angeles, the couple continued dating and became engaged in December 1998. The following year, the pair starred in Cruel Intentions together. Phillippe and Witherspoon married in the summer of 1999, in a small ceremony on a plantation near North Charleston, South Carolina.
On September 9, 1999, Phillippe and Witherspoon had a daughter named Ava Elizabeth, after Phillippe's grandmother. Their son, Deacon (named after Phillippe's distant relative, Deacon Phillippe, a baseball player) was born on October 23, 2003. The family resided in a gated community in Brentwood, California. On October 30, 2006, Phillippe and Witherspoon released a statement announcing that they have decided to formally separate after seven years of marriage. On November 8, 2006, Witherspoon filed for divorce.
Selected filmography
Year Title Role Notes
1995 Crimson Tide Seaman Grattam
1996 White Squall Gil Martin
1997 Little Boy Blue Jimmy West
1997 I Know What You Did Last Summer Barry William Cox
1998 54 Shane O'Shea
Playing by Heart Keenan
1999 Cruel Intentions Sebastian Valmont
2000 The Way of the Gun Parker
2001 AntiTrust Milo Hoffman
Company Man Petrov
Gosford Park Henry Denton
2002 Igby Goes Down Oliver 'Ollie' Slocumb
2003 The i Inside Simon Cable
2005 Crash Officer Tommy Hanson
2006 Flags of Our Fathers John Bradley
2007 Breach Eric O'Neill
Stop-Loss
Five Fingers (2006) Martijn
Chaos Officer Shane Dekker
2009 Magneto Pietro Maximoff/Quicksliver
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