An alumnus of State University of New York and the University of Massachusetts, American actor Bill Pullman excelled in both wacky comedy and intense drama during his stage years, working with such repertory companies as the Folger Theatre Groupe and the Los Angeles Theatre Center. Before college, he attended a technical institute and studied building construction (years later he used those skills to build his own house in California). In films, Pullman could be relied upon to almost invariably lose the girl, as witness his brace of 1993 films, Sleepless in Seattle and Somersby. He almost lost his screen wife Geena Davis to Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own (1992), but this gratuitous plot point was eliminated from the script. Only since 1994 has Pullman won the heroine's hand with any regularity. The summer of 1995 found Bill Pullman with back-to-back leading roles in two of the season's biggest box-office successes: While You Were Sleeping and Casper: The Movie. Pullman gained even more recognition for his heroic portrayal of the self-sacrificing U.S. president in the special effects blockbuster Independence Day. Up to this point, Pullman was pretty well typecast in "nice guy" roles. In David Lynch's Lost Highway (1996), he broke that mold by appearing as a deeply disturbed husband. In 1995, Pullman began a side career as a producer when he founded his own production company Big Town.
Bill Pullman
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Biography by AllMovie
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- Is one of seven children.
- Was interested in pursuing a career in construction before becoming an actor.
- Slipped into a three-day coma after a fall from a ladder in college, leaving him with a dulled sense of smell.
- Performed in various theater groups in Los Angeles and New York.
- Made feature debut in 1986's Ruthless People.
- Formed production company, Big Town, in the mid-1990s.
- Worked as a theater instructor at Montana State University; one of his students was aspiring director John Dahl, who later cast Pullman in his films The Last Seduction (1994) and You Kill Me (2007).
- Is on the Board of Trustees at New York's Alfred University, where he received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree in 2011, when he was the keynote graduation speaker.
- Fond of joking about the fact that he is sometimes mistaken for another actor, Bill Paxton.
- Received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in Television for his work on Torchwood: Miracle Day (2011).