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• David Strathairn is an Academy Award nominated American film, television, and stage actor whose career spans three decades. He is often referred to as a character actor, and his works on such films as Good Night and Good Luck, Passion Fish, Limbo, and City of Hope have garnered him attention from the public and critics alike.

• Fast Facts

  1. Full Name: David Russell Strathairn
  2. Birth Date: January 26, 1949
  3. Birth Place: San Francisco, California
  4. Is of Scottish and Hawaiian decent
  5. Graduate of Williams College in Massachusetts
  6. Has appeared in 7 John Sayles films
  7. Spent six months as a clown in a traveling circus

• Working With John Sayles

  David Strathairn began his career in 1980, appearing in John Sayles first film Return of the Secaucus Seven. He first met the director while both were attending Williams College and participating in experimental theater. They were reunited five years later during a summer theater program in New Hampshire, which ultimately led to Sayles casting him in his first film. Many more were to follow, including The Brother From Another Planet, Matewan, Eight Men Out, City of Hope, Passion Fish, and Limbo. Sayles was also instrumental in David Strathairn being cast as Arthur Spiderwick in The Spiderwick Chronicles, a film that Sayles helped pen.

• Good Night and Good Luck

  David Strathairn's body of work is extensive, but he has often been overlooked, something his friend John Sayles has attributed to his not being pushy enough. Many of his characters have been overshadowed by the stronger characters in the film such as his role opposite Kathy Bates in Dolores Claibourne or opposite Meryl Streep in The River Wild. All else aside, it was impossible not to recognize him in the 2006, George Clooney directed film Good Night and Good Luck, in which he played the enigmatic Edward R. Murrow. The film garnered him his first Academy Award nomination.

• Quotes

  1. "Film is our literature, so we should tell stories that are apropos of our culture, in that we can learn something about ourselves."
  2. "I happen to prefer theater. I like the immediacy of it and the opportunity of portraying the arc of a character from point A to point B every night."
  3. "I tend to get as much information, in as many different ways, as I can. If it's a play, it's often about the historical contact and the social things going on at the time--what kind of art, what kind of clothes, the whole gestalt of where, when, and why with a play. I find any and all information about a person, place, and thing can't help but give you a fuller awareness and references to your avail and use."

• Related Mahalo Pages

  My Blueberry Nights | The Spiderwick Chronicles | Good Night and Good Luck | George Clooney | The Bourne Ultimatum | Matt Damon | We Are Marshall | L.A. Confidential | Fracture | The Sopranos | John Sayles | The Notorious Bettie Page | Battie Page Dead

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