Anton Yelchin

Anton Yelchin (born March 11, 1989) is an American film and television actor. He began performing in the late 1990s, appearing in several television roles, as well as the Hollywood films Along Came a Spider and Hearts in Atlantis. More recently, Yelchin appeared on the television series Huff and starred in the films House of D and Alpha Dog.

Biography

Personal life

Yelchin was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia to Irina Korina and Viktor Yelchin, figure skaters who were national celebrities as stars of the Leningrad Ice Ballet for fifteen years.^[1][2] Yelchin's parents qualified for the 1972 Winter Olympics but because they were Jewish, were not permitted to participate by the Soviet authorities.^[1][2] Yelchin's family moved to the United States in September of 1989, receiving status as refugees from political and religious oppression.^[1][2] Yelchin's mother now works as a figure skating choreographer and his father as a figure skating coach, having been Sasha Cohen's first trainer.^[3] Yelchin enjoys playing the guitar, saying that it gives him "a lot of fulfillment", and is a fan of acoustic blues music.^[3] He attends the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies, in Tarzana, California and began acting at the age of nine, in the independent film A Man is Mostly Water.^[3]

Career

Yelchin's earliest roles include playing Jackson in A Time for Dancing, Milo in Delivering Milo, Tommy Warshaw in House of D, and "Jacob Clarke" in the mini-series Taken. He made a guest appearance as Stewart, Cheryl David's nephew and a self-described magician (who only knows one card trick), in a season four episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and starred as Byrd Huffstodt, the fourteen year-old son of Dr. Craig "Huff" Huffstodt (Hank Azaria) on the television series Huff, which ran from 2004 to 2006. In 2006, he also had a role on an episode of the series Law & Order: Criminal Intent, playing the son of a dead doctor. His biggest film recognition came for the role of Bobby Garfield in Hearts in Atlantis (2001), for which he won Best Performance in a Feature Film - Leading Young Actor at the 2002 Young Artist Awards.

During the summer of 2006, Yelchin filmed Charlie Bartlett, in which he plays the title role of a wealthy teenager in a public high school, opposite actors Robert Downey Jr., Hope Davis and Kat Dennings;^[4] the film is scheduled for release on August 3, 2007. Yelchin has also starred in Fierce People, a drama starring Diane Lane and Donald Sutherland, and Alpha Dog, a crime thriller that received a U.S. release on January 12, 2007.

In Alpha Dog, he plays Zack Mazursky, who is based on real-life kidnap and murder victim Nicholas Markowitz.^[3] USA Today's review described the performance as "heartbreakingly endearing".^[5] Yelchin felt awkward appearing in the swimming pool-set sexual scene in the film, specifying that he felt "uncomfortable" for his co-stars and that he could not "imagine enjoying it or taking pleasure" in filming the scene.^[6]

Selected filmography

Footnotes

Wikipedia information about Anton Yelchin This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Anton Yelchin". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.