Name: Barry Robert PepperDate of Birth: April 4th, 1970
Birthplace: Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
Spouse: Cindy Pepper (November 1997 - present)
Children: 1 daughter, Annaliese (born 17th June, 2000)
High School: George P. Vanier Secondary School, British Columbia, Canada
College: Vancouver Actors Studio, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Personal Life
Barry Robert Pepper was born April 4th, 1970 on Vancouver Island, Canada. He followed two older brothers, Doug and Alex, completing the Pepper family. As well as raising three boys, Barry’s parents spent their time attempting to complete an enormous project; for years they had been building a ship in their backyard.
When Barry was five years old, the ship was done and the family set sail. The ship, named “The Moonlighter”, was a 50-foot craft that would be their home for the next five years. They navigated through the South Pacific islands, using only a sextant and the stars as guides. While visiting such exotic locales as Fiji and Tahiti, Barry was educated through correspondence courses and sometimes enrolled in public schools.
He grew up around Polynesian children and garnered from them a love of dance, music and other expressive arts. Without television as entertainment on the ship, the family relied on games and sketch acting for fun. He credited these early experiences with developing his early love of performance.
Once the five year journey was complete, the family returned to Canada, where they settled on a small island off the West Coast near Vancouver. Barry attended George P. Vanier Secondary School in British Columbia. While there he was enthusiastic about art and also excelled in sports such as volleyball and rugby. Around this time, Barry’s mother enrolled him in ballet classes to round out his love of rugby, football, and baseball. At one point, he taught breakdancing. It was in High School that Barry met Cindy, his future wife.
Graduating from High School in 1988, he then briefly pursued a college degree in marketing and graphic design. However Barry soon realised his true calling was in acting. He transferred to the Vancouver Actors Studio, changing course completely. Barry and Cindy began dating seriously in 1994 and were married in 1997.
The Career
Barry made his US television debut with a bit part in the based-on-fact murder mystery A Killer Among Friends in 1992. Between 1992 and 1995, Barry appeared in several TV shows and TV movies, landing a recurring role in Madison, the Canadian teen drama series in 1993. He spent three years working on Madison before moving on to more prestigious roles in the US. TV movies followed, most notably the mini-series Titanic in 1996.
Still, Barry’s career really wasn’t taking off. He was a hard working actor, but not a star. It was his participation Steven Spielberg’s riveting World War II action drama Saving Private Ryan in 1998 that altered the trajectory of the his career. Cast as Pvt. Daniel Jackson, an army sharpshooter whose deeply religious beliefs put him at odds with his deadly work, Barry more than held his own alongside the likes of more established actors, including the film’s star, Tom Hanks.
In the wake of the phenomenal success of Saving Private Ryan, Barry was quickly cast as earnest, conflicted men in two back-to-back features. In the 1998 surveillance thriller Enemy of the State he played an ethically-challenged detective. Reteaming with Hanks the following year, Pepper effectively portrayed a young prison guard in the 1999 adaptation of Stephen King’s metaphysical drama The Green Mile. This string of films were all critical and financial hits, earning him three nominations from the Screen Actors Guild and an Online Film Critics Society Award.
That winning streak came to a screeching halt with the release of Barry’s next major motion picture, the infamous disaster Battlefield Earth in 2000. The film was met with nearly universal derision by critics and audiences alike. The role, being his most prominent up to that point, earned him a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor. In a display of good natured humour, Barry has stated that, had he known he was going to win the award in advance, he would have gladly accepted it in person.
Barry’s next role, as the clean-cut baseball legend Roger Maris in the 2001 film 61* earned him more positive notices and nominations as Best Actor from the Emmys, Golden Globes, and Broadcast Film Critics Association.
Over the next few years he worked steadily in a variety of genres, including the gangster comedy drama Knockaround Guys in 2001 and a return to the military battlefield in Mel Gibson’s gritty Vietnam War film We Were Soldiers in 2002. That same year, he also turned in a strong performance alongside Edward Norton in Spike Lee’s overlooked drama 25th Hour.
He then returned to his native Canada to co-produce and star in actor Charles Martin Smith’s 2004 film, The Snow Walker. He garnered further praise back in the States for his role as racing legend Dale Earnhardt in the made-for-TV biopic 3: The Dale Earnhardt Story, which he also co-produced. Barry next gave a particularly powerful performance as a violent and confused rookie patrolman who unwillingly accompanies Tommy Lee Jones across the Mexican border to pay final respects to a friend in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada in 2005.
That same year he portrayed the amoral Tom Ripley in Roger Spottiswoode’s largely unseen Ripley Under Ground. Another barely noticed project came the following year with the thriller Unknown.
More notable was his co-starring role in Clint Eastwood’s World War II historical drama Flags of Our Fathers in 2006, in which he portrayed Marine Sergeant Michael Strank, one of six soldiers captured in the iconic picture that was used by the government to rally a weary public behind the war effort.
After a two-year hiatus, Barry returned to the screen, once again alongside Will Smith, in the redemption drama Seven Pounds in 2008. Next up were two low-profile independent features, the first being the 2009 docudrama Princess Kaiulani, the second being the little-seen but critically praised Like Dandelion Dust that same year.
More television work included another biopic in 2010. Barry starred alongside Winona Ryder, who portrayed the founder of the relatives of alcoholics support group Al-Anon in When Love is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story. Staying within the realm of based-on-fact material, he appeared in theatres in the political satire Casino Jack in 2010.
Barry ended that year and began the next on a high note when he picked up a supporting role in Joel and Ethan Coen’s re-envisioning of the classic Western revenge tale True Grit. He played outlaw ‘Lucky’ Ned Pepper in the critically hailed 2010 film, which received an impressive total of 10 Academy Award nominations.
Continuing with his hot streak of lauded productions, he next co-starred with Greg Kinnear and Katie Holmes in the 2011 biographical miniseries The Kennedys. Barry played Robert F Kennedy, winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie.
Sources
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001608/
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1800019309/bio
