The son of actor/playwright Jason Miller and the grandson of comedian Jackie Gleason, the handsomely chiseled actor Jason Patric moved from New York City to California at the age of 16. Ever since his debut role as a drug-addicted teen for the ABC movie Tough Love, the hunky actor has preferred to play intense characters. He would nearly perfect the sexy, brooding man in many serious dramas and thrillers throughout his career, while trying to maintain privacy by refusing to talk about himself in interviews. After the unsuccessful Solarbabies, his gave his breakthrough performance in the teen classic The Lost Boys as the reluctant vampire Michael. He then gained starring roles as a soldier in the war movie The Beast and as an ex-boxer in the crime drama After Dark, My Sweet. Moving on to horror, he was chosen to portray Lord Byron in Roger Corman's Frankenstein Unbound. In 1991, he gained some critical recognition -- and a beard -- for his role as a drug-addicted narcotics officer in Rush, opposite his moody counterpart Jennifer Jason Leigh. The same year he was dragged into the tabloids for his affair with Hollywood sweetheart Julia Roberts. She had broken off her engagement with Kiefer Sutherland and ran off to Europe with Patric, causing a disruption to his enigmatic public persona. Taking some time off, he returned for Geronimo: An American Legend with Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall. He starred in the period piece The Journey of August King, the romantic thriller Incognito, and had a small part in Sleepers before making a wild career turn for Speed 2: Cruise Control. However, it appears that starring in the action blockbuster was just a way to get some cash to fund his next project as actor and producer for Neil LaBute's independent film Your Friends & Neighbors. After this brave venture, he sought out more experimental work, interpreting Anton Chekhov's plays in 3 Days of Rain and appearing in the documentary Scene Smoking: Cigarettes, Cinema, and the Myth of Cool. In 2002, Patric returned to the gritty world of undercover narcotics officers for Narc with Ray Liotta and Busta Rhymes.
Jason Patric
Share on
Biography by AllMovie
Movie Highlights
Factsheet
- Maternal grandfather is show-biz legend Jackie Gleason; father Jason Miller is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (That Championship Season) and Oscar-nominated actor (The Exorcist).
- His first industry job was as a production assistant on his father's film adaptation of That Championship Season.
- Playing an undercover narcotics officer who gets hooked in 1991's Rush, he insisted on injecting actual saline-filled syringes into his arm to simulate heroin use.
- Copped a high-profile role as Sandra Bullock's replacement love interest in Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997).
- Made his Broadway debut playing Brick in the 2003 revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
- Turned down the lead roles in The Firm and The Passion of the Christ.
- In 2011, appeared in a Broadway revival of his father's That Championship Season, the story of a reunion of high-school basketball players.