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Ben Foster
Foster in December 2007
Born	October 29, 1980 (1980-10-29) (age 29) Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1996—present

Ben Foster (born October 29, 1980) is an American actor. He is known for his roles in the teen movies Liberty Heights and Get Over It, as well as the action films Hostage, X-Men: The Last Stand, Alpha Dog, 3:10 to Yuma, 30 Days of Night, and most recently in the science fiction film Pandorum.

Early life

Foster was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Gillian and Stephen Foster, who own several restaurants.^[1][2][3] He has a younger brother, Jon, who is also an actor. Foster's parents, whom he has described as "free-spirited, Vietnam-protesting hippies", relocated to the small town of Fairfield, Iowa four years after he was born, after their Boston home was burglarized while they were present.^[3][4] Foster has practiced Transcendental Meditation since he was four years old,^[5] and, while in Fairfield, attended a school where Transcendental Meditation was part of the curiculum.^[3]

Foster is Jewish; his paternal grandmother emigrated from Russia to escape Pogroms.^[4][6]

Career

Foster left school and moved to Los Angelas to pursue acting. Foster has worked as an actor since he was sixteen years old. ^[3] In 1996-97, he appeared in the television series Flash Forward. He auditioned for the role of Donnie Darko in Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko. The role eventually went to Jake Gyllenhaal. In the next three years, Foster had small roles in two made-for-TV movies and in two episodes of the series Freaks and Geeks. In 2001, he acted in Get Over It. Foster also had a recurring role as the bisexual Russell Corwin (22 episodes) in the HBO Original Series, Six Feet Under.<^[3] After he made 11:14 and The Punisher, Foster also appeared in Hostage with Bruce Willis, Kevin Pollak and Michelle Horn. In 2006, Foster appeared in X-Men: The Last Stand as the comic-book hero Angel/Warren Worthington III.^[3] A notable role was in the crime thriller Alpha Dog, in which he played Jake Mazursky, a drug addict. Foster added glaucoma drops to his eyes during filming in order to simulate the appearance of a drug abuser.^[7] In 2007, he played cold-blooded killer Charlie Prince in the critically acclaimed 3:10 to Yuma.

Filmography

Television appearances

References

External links

• Ben Foster at the Internet Movie Database