American Tony Award-winning actor Liev Schreiber was born on October 4, 1967 in San Francisco, California. He was unpopular in school despite being athletic, and attended Hampshire College in Massachusetts where he began his acting training. In 1992, he graduated from the Yale School of Drama. He also attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Schreiber originally planned on becoming a playwright, but instead turned towards acting because of his teacher’s encouragement.
Liev Schreiber’s big break came in 1996 when he was cast as the accused murderer in the Scream trilogy of films. Before that, he appeared in TV movies like Janek: The Silent Betrayal in 1994, The Sunshine Boys and Buffalo Girls in 1995. He is also remembered for his performances in the independent films The Daytrippers, Walking and Talking and Big Night. In 1997, he was cast in His and Hers, Baggage and Scream 2, and became the narrator for CIA: America’s Secret Warriors.
He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his portrayal of Orson Welles in the HBO Original Movie RKO 281. In 2000, he had supporting roles in Hamlet, alongside Ethan Hawke and returned for his role of Cotton Weary in Scream 3. He can also be seen playing Stuart Besser in Kate & Leopold and in 2002’s The Sum of All Fears with Ben Affleck. In 2004, he was given a major role in The Manchurian Candidate as Raymond Shaw. He was also in The Omen and The Painted Veil in 2006. Liev Schreiber has also starred in episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as Michael Keppler in 2007 and was the narrator for an episode of American Masters.
Liev Schreiber is also a well-known classical actor, due to his work in the Shakespeare play Cymbeline and his portrayal of the title character in Hamlet in December 1999. He also won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play for portraying Roma in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Glengarry Glen Ross. Schreiber has also appeared in the Broadway revival of Talk Radio and played the womanizing Lotario Thurgot in Mike Newell’s screen adaptation of Love in the Time of Cholera, based on the novel by Gabriel-Garcia Marquez.
San Francisco, California, USA
Grew up in Lower East Side New York. Graduated from Friends Seminary High School in Manhattan.
Attended London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Hampshire College and graduated from Yale.
Son of actor Tell Schreiber and Heather. Has four half brothers and one half sister, including brother Pablo Schreiber.
His mother says she named him after her favorite author, Leo Tolstoy whose Russian name was Lev (pronounced "lee-ev"). His father says he was named after a doctor in San Francisco who saved his mother's life. Last name means "writer" in German.
Attended high school with actress Amanda Peet when he was a senior and she was a freshman.
His mother is of German-Ukranian-Polish heritage (maternal grandfather was from Ukraine) and his father was of Austrian-Scottish-Swiss heritage.
Frequently does voice-over and narration work for advertisements and do!$#!#entaries.
Prefers to keep his dating life private, although he has been romantically linked to actress Kristin Davis and to film producer Kate Driver (Minnie Driver's sister). He accompanied his girlfriend Naomi Watts to the King Kong (2005) premiere in New York. It was their first public appearance together. On February 28, 2007, they announced they are expecting their first child.
Has worked with actress Rose McGowan in two different horror films - Scream (1996/I) and Phantoms (1998).
Along with David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and Jamie Kennedy, he is one of only five actors to appear in all three Scream films.
After his parents divorced, he and his siblings saw their father very little during childhood.
The role for which he won his first Tony award (Richard Roma in Glengarry Glen Ross) also won Joe Mantegna the Featured Actor in a Play Tony for the same role 21 years earlier in 1984. The 2005 production was directed by Joe Mantello.
Won the 2005 Tony Award best featured actor in a play for Glengarry Glen Ross.
Grew up in Lower East Side New York.
Growing up, his mother didn't allow him to watch color movies. The first color movie he saw was Star Wars in 1977.
Broadway Debut in 1993 In the Summer House.
Is a good friend of Dustin Hoffman.
Was a fan favorite for the role of District Attorney Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight (2008), and expressed interest for the role. He eventually lost out to Aaron Eckhart.
The actor and his fianc?e, Naomi Watts, welcomed their first child, a healthy baby boy, on July 25, 2007. Alexander Pete Schreiber, who was born at 3:59 p.m. in Los Angeles, weighed 8 lbs., 4 oz, and was 22.5 inches long (Alexander is for his grandfather and Peter is for her father, Peter Watts).
Second son with Naomi Watts born December 14, 2008.
Second son is named Samuel Kai.
Nominated for the 2007 Tony Award (New York City) for Actor in a Drama for "Talk Radio".
Close friends with Hugh Jackman.
"It's not easy being 6' 3" and being called 'Huggy'." - on the nickname he's had since childhood
I think a certain amount of Ricky's rage and profanity has been a nice vent from the frustrations of the editing room, so it's great to come out screaming profanities at the audience for an hour and a half after eight hours of trying to be diplomatic in the editing room." on editing 'Everything is Illuminated' at the same time as acting as foul-mouthed Ricky Roma in "Glengarry Glen Ross
"Trying to escape the powder puff and the man blush was the primary motivation for this whole endeavor. It's weird. You think, 'Now I'm going to direct, and they won't give me such a hard time about how I look.' But sure enough, there they are, coming at you with the powder puff and the man blush." [on the make-up required to 'hide' his nose]
That's the hard thing about adapting a book that's so well loved. It's like playing Hamlet. The audience doesn't buy it, because they're Hamlet. How could you possibly be Hamlet when Hamlet is them? It's one of those difficult things where a good writer gives the reader ownership of the material. They develop an intimate relationship with it and become its protectors, and rightly so. Whether they like the movie or not, there is something a bit outrageous about exploiting their private story.
If you are going to remake a film, you may as well remake a classic. I do think great stories have a way of retelling themselves. The medium is so young that so much is not content-driven, it's about stars and the studio. But when we have gotten through that phase of film, which I figure we probably will in about 15 or 20 years, films will be able to stand on the legs of their stories.
Style, no matter how outrageous it is, is still an expression of someone's personality. And my personality is somewhere stuck in the classics.
You can think about your career or you can think about your job. I like to think about my job.
It's good to overexpose yourself with work. But don't expose yourself too much with the press.
I am so used to being able to express myself from being an actor. So when people don't understand me, I'm just completely lost.
Everyone assumes that novelists are smarter and more interesting. They're generally smarter and more interesting, but they're often very short. So it kind of cancels all the smart and interesting stuff out.
"When I'm doing classical theater, I feel engaged and all pistons running and like I'm on new territory, because the size of it is so much bigger and the scope so much broader." - to Variety (05/1999)
People always pronounce it Leave. I walk into a casting person's office and the first thing I usually hear is 'Leave!'