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At the age of ten, Lou Taylor Pucci had no serious interest in acting, but his aunt saw that he had quite a talent for the art. She bribed him to appear in a community theater production of Oliver, kicking off a career that would soon land him on Broadway in a production of The Sound of Music. By the age of 15, he had a small part in the independent film Personal Velocity: Three Portraits. The minor role caught the eye of agent Billy Lazarus, who subsequently took Pucci on as a client. Pucci took his first leading role in 2005's Thumbsucker, the first feature film by music video director Mike Mills. His sensitive and humorous portrayal of a 17-year-old boy's struggle to grow up was extremely well received, garnering praise from critics and audiences alike. Leading up to this auspicious debut, the young actor had a supporting part in another indie film called The Chumscrubber, a darkly comic tale about the dysfunction of suburbia. The same year, he could be seen performing alongside such greats as Paul Newman, Ed Harris, and Philip Seymour Hoffman in the Golden Globe Award-winning HBO mini series Empire Falls. 2006 found Pucci reluctant to slow down, joining the cast of director Martin Hynes' second feature film The Go-Getter, as well as Richard Linklater's film adaptation of Eric Schlosser's best-selling book Fast Food Nation. He also signed on to appear in Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly's futuristic ensemble film Southland Tales.