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Matthew Ryan Phillippe (pronounced /ˈfɪlɨpiː/; born September 10, 1974), better known as Ryan Phillippe, is an American actor. After appearing on the soap opera One Life to Live he came to fame in the late 1990s starring in a string of films, including I Know What You Did Last Summer, Cruel Intentions and 54. Phillippe's more recent roles include the 2005 Academy Award-winning ensemble film Crash and the 2006 war drama Flags of Our Fathers. In 2007 he starred in Breach, a movie based on the true story of FBI operative Eric O'Neill who is assigned to shadow and help catch his boss, Robert Hanssen, a spy for the Soviet Union and Russia, in the act of selling secret material.

Phillippe was born in New Castle, Delaware, the son of Susan, who ran a day care center in the family's house, and Richard Phillippe, who worked for DuPont.[1] Phillippe is of French descent.[2] He has three sisters. Phillippe attended New Castle Baptist Academy, where he played basketball and soccer, as well as earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do;[3] he was also the Yearbook Editor in his senior year. At the age of 15, he became interested in an acting career, inspired by a neighbor's suggestion. With that he attended Barbizon Modeling and Acting School located in Wilmington, DE; this is where he began his career and later starred in TV shows and movies.[citation needed]
[edit] Career

Phillippe's acting career began with an appearance in ABC daytime drama One Life to Live. His character Billy Douglas, whom he played from 1992 to 1993, was the first gay teenager on a daytime soap opera. After leaving the show, Phillippe moved to Los Angeles, where he appeared in a number of small parts in various television series including Matlock, the tv mini-series The Secrets of Lake Success, and movies, including the 1995 film Crimson Tide and the 1996 film White Squall.

Phillippe was cast in the 1997 horror film, I Know What You Did Last Summer, which co-starred Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt. The film was a success, and led to Phillippe gaining wider renown and being cast in a few more high-profile films, including 54 in 1998. In 1999 he starred in Cruel Intentions, a modern retelling of the Choderlos de Laclos novel, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, which also starred Phillippe's future wife, Reese Witherspoon, as well as his I Know What You Did Last Summer co-star, Sarah Michelle Gellar. It was a success among its intended teenage audience, cementing Phillippe's ability to play characters that require sex appeal. Phillippe can also be seen in the Marcy Playground music video "Comin' Up From Behind", which also appears on the film's soundtrack.

In the years following, Phillippe appeared in the crime drama The Way of the Gun, starred as a famed software engineer in the thriller Antitrust, and co-starred in Robert Altman's critically-acclaimed Gosford Park, which featured several of Britain's most respected actors and was nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture. Subsequently, Phillippe had supporting parts in the films Igby Goes Down (2002) and Crash (2005), which won the Oscar for Best Picture. His 2003 film, The I Inside, premiered on cable.

In 2006, Phillippe played real-life Navy corpsman John Bradley in the war film Flags of Our Fathers, directed by Clint Eastwood and following the journey of the United States Marines who lifted the flag at the battle of Iwo Jima. Phillippe has said that the film was the "best experience" of his career because of its "personal meaning" to him,[4] and that he would have "given [his] life" to fight in World War II, noting that both of his grandfathers fought in the war.[5] Phillippe's role was positively received by film critic Richard Roeper, who specified that he thought it was Phillippe's best performance to date.[6] Phillippe's next role was in the thriller Breach, in which he played FBI investigator Eric O'Neill opposite Chris Cooper. He has since commented that he believes Cooper to be "the best actor America has to offer".[7] He then starred in several 2007 and 2008 films, including Chaos, in which he plays a police officer, Five Fingers, a drama set in Morocco, Kimberly Pierce's Iraq war film Stop-Loss, and the futuristic story Franklyn.

Next up for Phillippe was a rare comedic role as Lt. Dixon Piper in MacGruber, the film adaptation of the popular SNL skit. Filmed during the summer of 2009 in Albuquerque, the movie was released in the US and Canada on May 21, 2010.[8][9] As part of the film's promotion, Phillippe made his Saturday Night Live hosting debut on April 17, 2010, along with first-time musical performer Ke$ha.[10] Two days later, on April 19, 2010, Phillippe co-hosted WWE Raw with Jonathan Swift and Charo, also in support of MacGruber.[11]

Upcoming projects for Phillippe include the Canadian/South African production The Bang Bang Club, which tells the real-life story of the Bang-Bang Club, four South African photographers whose images documented the bloody end of apartheid.[12] Phillippe stars as Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Greg Marinovich. Filming for the movie took place in South Africa, beginning in March 2009. Phillippe described the filming process as "really run-and-gun. There were no comforts, and I actually appreciate that". He noted that the experience has impacted him, explaining that "we were shooting during the day in Soweto, and it was an endless procession of funerals—death is so common. Kids there have no quality of life. It has made me want to get more involved in Africa-based charities."[3] An early cut of the film was shown at Cannes Film Festival in May 2009[13], with the final version premiering at Cannes in May 2010. The film is expected to have a wider theatre release later in 2010.[14]

In June 2010, Phillippe began filming a role in What's Your Number?, a 2011 comedy that stars Anna Faris as a woman trying to determine if one of the twenty men she's previously dated is the right one for her.[15][16] He will then take on a supporting role in the film adaptation of The Lincoln Lawyer, alongside Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei, and William H. Macy.[17] Phillippe is also set to star in Christopher McQuarrie's The Stanford Prison Experiment, an upcoming film about the infamous 1971 psychology experiment.[15]

Phillippe and his long-time friends Breckin Meyer, Seth Green, and David E. Siegal run a production company called Lucid Films. Phillippe is becoming more actively involved in his films as a producer,[5] and in 2010, he and Meyer began "getting a show going for Showtime", serving as producers.[3]
[edit] Personal life

In 1997, Phillippe attended a party given for actress Reese Witherspoon's 21st birthday. Upon meeting Witherspoon, Phillippe was reported to have spent all night talking to the young actress, with Witherspoon telling Phillippe, "I think you're my birthday present."[18] The following morning, Phillippe left California to film I Know What You Did Last Summer in North Carolina, and subsequently began a long-distance courtship with Witherspoon by mail, e-mail, and telephone. When Phillippe returned to Los Angeles, the couple continued dating and became engaged in December 1998. The following year, the pair starred in Cruel Intentions together. Phillippe and Witherspoon married on June 5, 1999, in a small ceremony on a plantation near North Charleston, South Carolina.

On September 9, 1999, Phillippe and Witherspoon had a daughter named Ava Elizabeth, after Phillippe's grandmother. Their son, Deacon Reese (named after Phillippe's distant relative, Deacon Phillippe, a baseball player) was born on October 23, 2003. The family resided in a gated community in Brentwood, California.

On October 30, 2006, Phillippe and Witherspoon released a statement announcing that they had decided to formally separate.[19] After more than seven years of marriage, Witherspoon filed for divorce from her husband on November 8, 2006, citing irreconcilable differences.[20] In light of the couple's lack of a prenuptial agreement, she requested that the court refuse to grant spousal support to Phillippe, and asked for joint legal custody and sole physical custody of the pair's two children. Phillippe filed for joint physical custody of the children on May 15, 2007, and did not seek any spousal support.[21] The couple's divorce became final June 13, 2008, according to court documents. The couple share joint custody of their children.[22] In 2007, Phillippe began dating Australian actress Abbie Cornish, whom he had met the previous year while filming Stop-Loss.[23] On February 21, 2010, Cornish's publicist announced that Phillippe and Cornish had ended their relationship.[24] Phillippe is a Philadelphia Eagles, Philadelphia Flyers & Philadelphia 76ers fan.

He is also an avid Howard Stern listener[3]. During his interviews on The Howard Stern Show he has made several references to the show's history, showing that he is a "Super Fan." He has also compared his battle with depression to that of former Stern Show co-host Artie Lange's. In his most recent Stern Show interview, he stated that he loves being a part of The Stern Universe but would appreciate if they could pronounce his name correctly.[citation needed]