John Cusack

John Cusack
Cusack at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival
Born	John Paul Cusack (1966-06-28) June 28, 1966 Evanston, Illinois, United States
Residence	Chicago, Illinois
Occupation	Actor, producer, screenwriter
Years active	1983–present
Parent(s)	Dick Cusack (father) Nancy Cusack (mother)
Relatives	Joan Cusack (sister) Ann Cusack (sister)

John Paul Cusack (/ˈkjuːsæk/, born June 28, 1966) is an American actor, producer and screenwriter. He appeared in several teen films in the mid-1980s, most notably Better Off Dead (1985), before he starred in Cameron Crowe's romantic comedy-drama Say Anything... in 1989, for which he gained teen idol status. He later starred in High Fidelity (2000), for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe. Cusack is also known for his performances in the films Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), Being John Malkovich (1999), 1408 (2007), 2012 (2009), Hot Tub Time Machine (2010) and The Raven (2012).

Early life

Cusack was born to a Catholic Irish-American family in Evanston, Illinois.^[1][2] He is the fourth of five children.^[3] His mother, Ann Paula "Nancy" (née Carolan), is a former mathematics teacher and political activist.^[4][5] His father, Richard Cusack (1925–2003), was an actor, as are Cusack's siblings Ann, Joan, Bill and Susie.^[6] Richard was also a documentary filmmaker^[7] who owned a film production company^[8] and was a friend of activist Philip Berrigan.^[9] Cusack graduated from Evanston Township High School in 1984, where he met Jeremy Piven,^[10] and spent a year at New York University before dropping out, saying that he had "too much fire in his belly".^[11]

Career

Cusack gained fame in the mid-1980s after appearing in teen films, such as Class, Sixteen Candles, Better Off Dead, The Sure Thing, One Crazy Summer and Stand By Me. He made a cameo in the 1988 music video for "Trip To The Brain" by Suicidal Tendencies. In 1989, he played Lloyd Dobler in Cameron Crowe's Say Anything.... His roles broadened in the late 1980s and early 1990s with more serious-minded fare such as the politically themed True Colors and the film noir thriller The Grifters. After establishing New Crime Productions,^[12] Cusack experienced box office success with his roles in the dark comedy Grosse Pointe Blank and the Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster Con Air. In the years since, he has appeared in roles such as an air traffic controller in Pushing Tin, an obsessive puppeteer in Being John Malkovich, a lovesick record store owner in High Fidelity and a Jewish art dealer mentoring a young Adolf Hitler in Max.

Cusack in 1997

Cusack starred in the horror film 1408, based on Stephen King's short story of the same name. He played a widowed father in the Iraq War-themed drama Grace Is Gone and as assassin Hauser in the dark political satire, War, Inc.. His sister Joan Cusack and close friend Jeremy Piven appeared in many of his films, such as Say Anything... and Grosse Pointe Blank. The siblings appeared as two geeks in Sixteen Candles, John as one of Farmer Ted's posse and Joan as the geek with the scoliosis brace. They also co-starred in High Fidelity, Cradle Will Rock, Martian Child and War, Inc.. Piven and Cusack starred in One Crazy Summer and Serendipity. Cusack made a brief cameo, seen from behind but speaking a line of dialogue, in Broadcast News, along with Joan. In 2009, Cusack played Jackson Curtis, a struggling novelist and limo driver in Roland Emmerich's disaster film 2012. He played Adam Yates in Hot Tub Time Machine in 2010, Edgar Allan Poe in the 2012 thriller film The Raven, Richard Nixon in Lee Daniels' 2013 historical film The Butler and Stafford Weiss in David Cronenberg's 2014 satirical film Maps to the Stars, a dark comic look at Hollywood excess.^[13] Cusack played older Beach Boys founding member Brian Wilson in the biopic, Love and Mercy.

Personal life

Cusack is a fan of both the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox, for which he says he is "in trouble" in Chicago.^[14] He led the crowd in a performance of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" at Wrigley Field.^[14] He was in attendance, along with fellow Cubs fans Bill Murray, Eddie Vedder and Bonnie Hunt during the Cubs' historic Game Seven victory during the 2016 World Series. He has also been spotted at multiple Chicago Bears games and attended many Stanley Cup Finals games in support of the Chicago Blackhawks.

According to Lisa Hampton from NBC Nightly News, Cusack has a vigorous daily wake-up routine. He told her: "I'm not lazy. I just enjoy gradually waking up in the morning. If that means sleeping in and walking around the house in my crocs and a bathrobe till three in the afternoon, I welcome that appealing lifestyle- all day."

Cusack trained in kickboxing under former world kickboxing champion Benny Urquidez for over 20 years. He began training under Urquidez in preparation for his role in Say Anything... and currently holds the rank of a level six black belt in Urquidez's Ukidokan Kickboxing system.^[15]

Cusack in 2006

Between 2005 and 2009, Cusack wrote blogs for The Huffington Post, which included an interview with Naomi Klein. He blogged on his opposition to the war in Iraq and his disdain for the Bush administration, calling its worldview "depressing, corrupt, unlawful, and tragically absurd".^[16] He also appeared in a June 2008 MoveOn.org advertisement, where he made the claim that George W. Bush and John McCain have the same governing priorities.^[17]

Cusack criticized President Barack Obama's administration for its drone policy in the Middle East and its support of the National Defense Authorization Act and became one of the initial supporters of the Freedom of the Press Foundation in 2012. In June 2015, he stated in an interview with The Daily Beast that "when you talk about drones, the American Empire, the NSA, civil liberties, attacks on journalism and whistle blowers, [Obama's] as bad or worse than Bush".^[18] However, he later scolded the publication for misquoting him in order to make an interesting headline.^[19][20]

In March 2008, police arrested Emily Leatherman outside Cusack's Malibu, California, home for stalking him. On October 10, 2008, Leatherman pleaded no contest and received five years' probation and mandatory psychiatric counseling, and was ordered to stay away from Cusack, his home and business for the next ten years.^[21]

In 2015, he "thought up and organized" a meeting with Edward Snowden, Daniel Ellsberg and Arundhati Roy in Snowden's Moscow hotel room.^[22]

Cusack is a follower of the Transcendental Meditation movement, introduced in the mid 1950s by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He stated that he is able to more thoroughly explore the depths of his characters through the use of TM.

Filmography

Film

Cusack in The Raven (2012)

Television

Awards and nominations

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to John Cusack.

• Barnes, Henry John Cusack: ‘Hollywood is a whorehouse and people go mad’ The Guardian, 26 September 2014. Accessed 27 February 2015
• Robinson, Tasha Onion A.V. Club interview, November 27, 2007
• John Cusack at AllMovie
• John Cusack at the Internet Movie Database
• John Cusack on Twitter