Brian Geraghty on AllMovie

New Jersey-born actor Brian Geraghty owed his love of acting -- and concomitant celebrity -- to one role that provided him with depthless inspiration: Sean Penn's turn as convicted murderer Matthew Poncelet in Dead Man Walking. After viewing that performance, Geraghty -- unclear after high school about where he wanted to go or what he wanted to do -- made a beeline from his home of Toms River, NJ, to New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse, where he plunged headfirst into classical theater -- and subsequently received a bid to audition for HBO's organized crime drama The Sopranos. Though Geraghty's turn in that blockbuster constituted a small one at best (he played a bumbling counterman who plugs himself in the foot), it caught the attention of Hollywood producers and casting agents, and helped Geraghty immeasurably during a brief period during which he taught surfing in Los Angeles and attended auditions on the side. Feature roles soon followed, in such pictures as Jarhead (2005), We Are Marshall (2006), and Bobby (2006). He ascended to higher billing (but descended several dozen notches in terms of picture quality) as a quarterback smitten with Lindsay Lohan in the critically reviled horror outing I Know Who Killed Me (2007).