Patrick Fugit on AllMovie

Patrick Fugit landed squarely on top of the Hollywood heap when, for the actor's big-screen debut, writer/director Cameron Crowe tapped him to play the lead, William Miller (Crowe's onscreen teenage alter-ego), in the smash film à clef Almost Famous (2000). The high profile of the role and the movie's success ensured continued stardom for the then-17-year-old, who had forged a path to stardom by discovering a rudimentary love of acting in seventh grade and asking his mother to help him sign with an agent. After the Crowe assignment, Fugit essayed a series of roles over the next several years that typically found him playing a hunky boyfriend -- as in White Oleander (2002) and the teen-oriented religious farce Saved! (2003). Unfortunately -- Famous and Saved aside -- Fugit's subsequent role choice often left something to be desired, witness his involvement in the dumb-dumb monster movie Dead Birds (2004) and the barely released comedy Bickford Schmeckler's Cool Ideas (2006). In 2007, Fugit signed to play opposite screen heavy Dennis Quaid in the psychological thriller Horsemen (2008). He appeared in 2009's Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant. He reteamed with Cameron Crowe playing a zookeeper in 2011's We Bought a Zoo, and had a role as the independent-minded son in the HBO docudrama Cinema Verite.