Logan Wade Lerman is an American actor, known for playing the title role in the fantasy-adventure
Percy Jackson films. He appeared in commercials in the mid-1990s, before starring in the series
Jack & Bobby and the movies The Butterfly Effect and Hoot. Lerman gained further recognition
for his roles in the western 3:10 to Yuma, the thriller The Number 23, the comedy Meet
Bill, and 2009's Gamer and My One and Only. He played d'Artagnan in 2011's The Three Musketeers,
starred in the teen drama The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and has supporting roles in
the 2014 films Noah and Fury.
Family background and early life Lerman was born in Beverly Hills, California.
His mother, Lisa, works as his manager, and his father, Larry Lerman, is a businessman
and orthotist. He has two siblings, Lindsey and Lucas, both older.
Logan is Jewish. His grandparents were born in four different countries. Logan's paternal
grandfather, Max Lerman, was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1927, to a Polish Jewish family;
they left Germany in the 1930s, because of the Nazi regime, and had lived in Shanghai,
China until the end of World War II. Logan's paternal grandmother, Mina, was born in Mexico
City, Mexico, to Russian Jewish parents. Logan's maternal grandfather was a Polish Jewish immigrant,
and Logan's maternal grandmother was born in Los Angeles, also to a Jewish immigrant
family. On his mother's side, he is a relative of twin singers Evan and Jaron Lowenstein.
Lerman has stated that he is a "black sheep" in his household because he is an actor, while
most of his relatives work in the medical profession. His family owns and operates the
orthotics and prosthetics company Lerman & Son, which had been founded by his great-grandfather,
Jacob Lerman, in 1915. Lerman is a self-described "film geek", and
has said that he is "shaped by movies", and that he is a "creative person". He has expressed
an interest in being involved in "everything that goes into making a film", including wanting
to write, produce, and direct. His favorite directors include Paul Thomas Anderson, Stanley
Kubrick, David Fincher and Peter Bogdanovich, and he has cited American Beauty, Defending
Your Life and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as being among his favorite films. Lerman
has described himself as "reserved and quiet", "a homebody", and "not a big fan of sports".
He graduated from Beverly Hills High School. In 2010, he applied to study creative writing
at New York University, but has postponed his attendance.
Acting career Early work
Lerman had a passion for movies from a young age, though he started acting "just for fun"
and "to do something to get out of school". He began auditioning for roles in the late
1990s, and first appeared in commercials. He made his film debut in 2000's The Patriot,
playing William Martin, one of the children of Mel Gibson's character. The same year,
he appeared in another Mel Gibson film, What Women Want, playing Gibson's character as
a child. In 2001's Riding in Cars with Boys, he played the son of Drew Barrymore's character.
Lerman has stated that while appearing in his earliest roles as a child, he did not
have "any conscious awareness of what I was doing or what was going on" and "didn’t
have a good experience".
In 2003, Lerman played nine-year-old Luke Chandler in the CBS made-for-television film
A Painted House, based on the early life of author John Grisham and set in Black Oak,
Arkansas in the early 1950s. A Painted House was filmed in Lepanto and Clarksdale, Mississippi,
in 2002. A review in the Boston Globe described Lerman as a "promising newcomer", with the
Telegraph-Herald commenting on the character having been "quietly and effectively played".
For the role, he was nominated for the Young Artist Award for Best Performance by a Leading
Young Actor in a television production, and tied with Calum Worthy for the win. He next
appeared in the 2004 thriller film The Butterfly Effect, portraying a seven year-old version
of Ashton Kutcher's character, Evan Treborn. digitallyOBSESSED's reviewer described Lerman
as "definitely a child actor to watch". Lerman had quit acting for a "year or so"
in the early 2000s, when he was ten. He made a "conscious decision" to embrace acting as
a profession when he was twelve, having developed an interest in the film making process. In
2004, he was cast in the television series Jack & Bobby, playing one of the title roles,
Robert "Bobby" McCallister, a 12 year-old "extremely bright social misfit" in Missouri
who was destined to become President of the United States as an adult. The show ran on
The WB Television Network during the 2004–2005 season, receiving some positive reviews but
low ratings, and was subsequently canceled. Lerman was nominated for another Young Artist
Award for his performance, tying with Jack DeSena for the win. Lerman has stated that
he "started taking things seriously" about his career after appearing on the show. The
Boston Herald's reviewer mentioned that Lerman's performance had a "blend of vulnerability
and strength," while Entertainment Weekly's reviewer had noted that "Lerman lends Bobby
a bedraggled optimism".
Continuing his film work, Lerman had his first starring role in a motion picture, playing
Roy Eberhardt in the children's adventure Hoot; his character moves to Florida from
Montana and attempts to save endangered burrowing owls. Lerman stated that the film's message
is "that you can be any age and make a difference". Hoot began filming in July 2005 in South Florida,
opened on May 5, 2006, and won him a third Young Artist Award, this time for Best Performance
in a Feature Film - Leading Young Actor. The Washington Post's reviewer commented that
"Lerman shows some life as Roy", though his role was "an anomaly in a sea of insipidity",
while the San Francisco Chronicle's reviewer disliked Lerman's performance.
In 2007, Lerman appeared in the thriller The Number 23, in which he played the son of Robin
Sparrow, a man who becomes obsessed with conspiracy theories. That year, he also appeared in the
critically acclaimed western remake 3:10 to Yuma, playing William Evans, a teenager who
looks up to criminal Ben Wade while shunning his father; Lerman's character did not exist
in the original version of the story. Lerman received positive reviews for his work, and
was again nominated for the Young Artist Award - Best Performance in a Feature Film - Leading
Young Actor. It was the second consecutive year he received a nomination in that category,
although this time he did not win. USA Today stated that he was among the film's "best
supporting players", while Rolling Stone gave Lerman a "shout-out" and Newsday stated that
he delivers a "credibly explicit note". In 2008, Lerman co-starred in the comedy Meet
Bill, as a teenager mentored by Bill. Meet Bill was filmed in 2006, premiered at the
Toronto International Film Festival in 2007, and received a theatrical release on April
4, 2008. Hollywood.com stated that, though the film was uneven, Lerman "displays a supreme
confidence". In 2009, he appeared in the science fiction film Gamer, as Simon, a teenage gamer
who controls one of the characters in a video game played with live human subjects. Also
that year, Lerman had a leading role in the Renée Zellweger comedy feature My One and
Only, playing a teenage character based on actor George Hamilton - depicted as an aspiring
writer who, after his parents split, accompanies his mother and brother on a cross-country
trip, eventually arriving in Hollywood. Bloomberg's reviewer described Lerman as appealing, with
the Los Angeles Times' Betsy Sharkey stating that the character "captures the ease with
which an angry teen will use a growing vocabulary to wound a parent".
Percy Jackson–present In spring 2009, Lerman was cast in the lead
role as Percy Jackson in Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. The movie
was filmed in 2009 in Vancouver, British Columbia, and was released in February 2010. Lerman
has stated that he was not familiar with the book series when he received the script. During
his teenage years, Lerman and his family had viewed his acting work as just a "hobby" before
college; his parents had only become more comfortable with acting as a career in 2010,
the year of Percy Jackson's release. In August 2010, Lerman appeared in "Change the Odds",
a public service announcement video for the Stand Up to Cancer charity; the video also
featured Dakota Fanning, Zac Efron, Andrew Garfield and other actors.
Lerman's next role was d'Artagnan, in director Paul W. S. Anderson's 3D film version of The
Three Musketeers, which was released in the U.S. on October 21, 2011. Lerman was cast
in the role without having to audition. He took the part because The Three Musketeers
was one of the only books his paternal grandfather had taken with him when he "had to leave his
home... as a young kid", in the 1930s. Lerman trained in sword fighting for three months
and wore hair extensions to portray d'Artagnan, whom he has described as "the most different
character to me that I've ever played". The film received negative reviews, with Michael
Phillips of the Chicago Tribune writing that "Lerman already has done solid work... but
he's a blank slate here". Lerman starred in a film adaptation of Stephen
Chbosky's novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower, playing the lead role, Charlie; filming took
place in 2011, and the movie was released in September 2012. Lerman has described the
film as a "life epic", and stated that he had been "torturing [himself] for... a few
months in order to get inside Charlie's head". The movie received positive reviews, as did
Lerman's performance. Leonard Maltin wrote that Lerman and his co-stars are "soulful",
and "lift this film above the norm for coming-of-age stories", while Christy Lemire of the Associated
Press wrote that, by the film's end, Lerman "bust[s] out, show[s] some range and reveal[s]
he can really, truly act". For his performance, Lerman was nominated for several awards, including
Best Young Actor/Actress by the Broadcast Film Critics Association, and won a Teen Choice
Award for Choice Movie Actor: Drama. Lerman played Lou in the independent drama
film Stuck in Love, starring alongside Lily Collins; the film received a limited U.S.
release in 2013. Lerman had initially been signed to appear in three Percy Jackson films.
The second film in the series, subtitled Sea of Monsters, was filmed in 2012 and 2013,
and released in August 2013. Lerman played Ham, the son of prophet Noah,
in the Biblical epic Noah, directed by Darren Aronofsky. Filming took place in 2012, in
New York and Iceland, and Noah was released on March 28, 2014, to positive reviews. Lerman
will also co-star with Brad Pitt and Shia LaBeouf in David Ayer's World War II-set film,
Fury; in Fury, Lerman's character is an American soldier fighting Nazi forces. Filming began
in September 2013, for a November 2014 release date.
Lerman is represented by the Creative Artists Agency.
Other work Lerman is a friend of actor Dean Collins,
who played his best friend on Jack & Bobby; they remained close after the series' cancellation,
and worked together again on Hoot, where Collins had a supporting role. In their spare time,
the two collaborated on comedic short films. As well as acting, they wrote, directed, and
shot the videos, often enlisting the help of family and friends. The shorts were uploaded
to YouTube under the joint account name of "monkeynuts1069".
In 2006, Dean Collins and Lerman formed a band, Indigo, along with musician Daniel Pashman;
Collins sang lead vocals, Lerman played keyboard and guitar, and Pashman played the drums.
In 2011, Lerman stated that Indigo is "not a serious band right now", and that music
is his biggest passion after film. He plays the piano and is a fan of movie music compositions.
Lerman also writes and creates loglines for stories.
BlackBook magazine wrote that Lerman "aspires to be the head of a [film] studio one day".
Filmography References
External links Official website
Logan Lerman at the Internet Movie Database Monkeynuts1069's channel on YouTube
Logan Lerman on Twitter