Peter Sarsgaard

Boyish-looking Peter Sarsgaard was born on March 7, 1971, at Scott Air Force Base, in Bellville, Illinois, to Judy Lea (Reinhardt) and John Dale Sarsgaard, an engineer who worked for the Air Force and later Monsanto and IBM. He is a graduate of St. Louis' Washington University, where he majored in history and literature. Initially trained with the Actors' Studio in New York, Peter began in comedy and became a co-founder of the comedy improvisational group Mama's Pot Roast. Such off-Broadway productions included Horton Foote's "Laura Dennis" and John Cameron Mitchell's "Kingdom of Earth." He made his screen debut in Tim Robbins' Dead Man Walking (1995) and was given more sizable roles in Desert Blue (1998) and The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), as the ill-fated son of the Musketeer Athos, played by John Malkovich. Peter then started gracing the art-house circuit, making a violent, searing impression as a homophobic killer in Boys Don't Cry (1999) starring two-time Oscar-winner Hilary Sw