Garrett Hedlund
Garrett John Hedlund (born September 3, 1984[1]) is an American actor and musician. His films include Troy (2004), Friday Night Lights (2004), Four Brothers (2005), Eragon (2006), Death Sentence (2007), Tron: Legacy (2010), Country Strong (2010), On the Road (2012), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), Unbroken (2014), Pan (2015), Mudbound (2017), Triple Frontier (2019), and The Marsh King's Daughter (2023).[2]
Garrett Hedlund
Early life[edit]
Garrett John Hedlund was born on September 3, 1984, in Roseau, Minnesota, to Kristine Anne (née Yanish) and Robert Martin Hedlund.[1] His father is of Swedish descent and his mother is of Norwegian and German descent.[3][4] He is the youngest of three children, with a brother, Nathaniel, and a sister, Amanda.
Hedlund was raised on a remote beef cattle farm near the small town of Wannaska, Minnesota[5][6][7] in the Scandinavian diaspora.[8]
In the 9th grade, he moved to live with his mother in Arizona. From an early age, he has had a great fondness for reading.[9] During his school years he participated in ice hockey, track and field, wrestling, and American football.[10] In Arizona he saved his tips from working as a waiter to pay for lessons with acting coach Jean Fowler, with whom he worked on speeches and script material.[11][12]
Six months after graduating from Horizon High School,[13] he moved to Los Angeles.[14]
Career[edit]
2003–2009: Early work and breakthrough[edit]
In 2003, Hedlund moved to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career.[14] As a teenager, Hedlund modeled for L.L. Bean and Teen Magazine.[15]
At the age of nineteen,[16] Hedlund made his debut in his first feature film playing Patroclus who was the younger cousin of Achilles played by Brad Pitt[17] in the mythological epic adventure war drama Troy,[18] directed by Wolfgang Petersen.[19] The film was released on May 14, 2004.[20][21]
That same year, he also co-starred with Billy Bob Thornton, Amber Heard and Tim McGraw as Don Billingsley in the 2004 sports drama Friday Night Lights, where McGraw played his abusive father.[22] In 2005, he co-starred with Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese Gibson and André Benjamin in the crime drama Four Brothers as Jack Mercer.[23][24]
He co-starred with Ed Speleers, Jeremy Irons, Djimon Hounsou and John Malkovich in the fantasy / adventure film Eragon as Murtagh Morzansson.[25] This 20th Century Fox film is an international co-production between United States, United Kingdom and Hungary. In October 2006, it was announced that the actors from the Eragon film would lend their voices to the game adaptation.[26] Hedlund lends his image and voice to his character Murtagh in the video game Eragon.[27]
In 2007, he co-starred with Lindsay Lohan, Jane Fonda and Cary Elwes in the comedy Georgia Rule, directed by Garry Marshall.[28] That same year, he co-starred with Kevin Bacon in the crime thriller Death Sentence,[29] directed by James Wan. In this film Hedlund plays the main villain Billy Darley.[30]