Jason Lee (actor)

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Jason Lee

Jason Lee as "Azrael" in Dogma
Birth name Jason Michael Lee
Born April 25, 1970 (age 36)
Flag of United States Orange, California, USA
Spouse(s) Carmen Llywelyn (July 1995 - July 2001) (divorced)
Official site Stereo Sound Agency
Notable roles Earl Hickey in My Name Is Earl
Brodie Bruce in Mallrats
Banky Edwards in Chasing Amy

Jason M. Lee (born April 25, 1970, in Orange, California, USA) is a Golden Globe Award nominated American actor and former professional skateboarder.

Lee was born in Orange, California. He was raised in nearby Huntington Beach, where he attended Ocean View High School, although he did not graduate.

Contents

[edit] Career

[edit] Skateboarding

Jason Lee was a prominent professional skateboarder in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Notable tricks performed by Lee included 360 flips(invented by Rodney Mullen), kickflip backside tailslides, and curb cut launched Japan airs. He was co-founder of Stereo Skateboards with Chris Pastras in 1992; the pair revived the company in 2004 after having been defunct for several years.

Lee was one of the first skateboarders to receive a pro model shoe, produced by Airwalk. His part in the 1991 Blind skateboards promotional video Video Days, shot by Spike Jonze, remains influential to this day. Today, he is remembered as one of the most influential and innovative street skaters of the early '90s.

Recently, he lent his voice to Tony Hawk's Project 8 and his likeness is used in the game as both an in game character and playable, secret character.

[edit] Acting

Intrigued by a few minor acting roles, including the Spike Jonze-directed Sonic Youth music video for "100%" in 1992 and a small part in Allison Anders' 1993 film Mi Vida Loca, Lee decided to leave professional skating for a full-time acting career, surprising the skateboarding world. His first major movie role was in Kevin Smith's Mallrats which became a cult hit. He remained a close friend of Smith and has appeared in most of the director's works, including Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Jersey Girl and Clerks II. Most consider Lee's acting career to have truly launched with his Independent Spirit Award-winning role in Chasing Amy as Banky Edwards, the internal-homophobic comic book artist and best friend of Ben Affleck's character, Holden McNeil.

Lee graduated to leading man roles in Heartbreakers (alongside Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Stealing Harvard (alongside Tom Green) as well as A Guy Thing (alongside Julia Stiles). He has had supporting roles in Vanilla Sky, Almost Famous, Dreamcatcher, Big Trouble, The Ballad of Jack and Rose and Mumford, as well as a minor role in Enemy of the State. He also voiced the schizophrenic (according to the DVD Directors' Commentary) supervillain Syndrome in the animated movie The Incredibles and its DVD bonus video Jack-Jack Attack. Lee reprised the role as a "robot copy" of Syndrome in the Disney on Ice play Disney Presents Pixar's The Incredibles in a Magic Kingdom Adventure.

[edit] Television success

Screen shot of Jason on the hit NBC sitcom, My Name Is Earl.
Screen shot of Jason on the hit NBC sitcom, My Name Is Earl.

Lee had long been uninterested in working in television until he was offered the lead role in the 2005 NBC sitcom, My Name Is Earl. According to interviews on the first season DVD, he passed on the series twice before finally agreeing to read the pilot. Even then he was apprehensive that the script would be properly translated to screen until he met with creator Greg Garcia and co-executive producer Marc Buckland.

The series, in which he stars as Earl Hickey, a petty thief who finds karma and sets out to put right all his wrongs from the past using a list he has compiled of all the bad things he has ever done, debuted to critical acclaim and impressive ratings on September 20, 2005. The show was an unexpected hit for NBC and was quickly ordered for a full season—the first sitcom of the season to do so. Several months later, it was also quickly renewed for a second season. His performance on the show has resulted in a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series — Musical or Comedy as well as a nomination for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series.

Lee was chosen for the role due to his earlier performances in Smith movies, as the makers of the show were searching for an actor to make their essentially amoral character seem likeable, and had noted Lee's ability to do so in movies such as Mallrats.

Lee is now said to have a new show coming soon to the cable television channel MTV, incorporating his skateboarding team who all skate for Lee's company, Stereo Skateboards.

[edit] Personal life

He was married to actress and photographer Carmen Llywelyn from 1995 to 2001.

Lee and his fiancée Beth Riesgraf (who appeared on an episode on My Name Is Earl, "Faked His Own Death") have a son named Pilot Inspektor Riesgraf Lee (b. September 28, 2003). The child's name was inspired by the song "He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot" by the band Grandaddy.[citation needed] Lee is a member of the Church of Scientology.[2][3]

[edit] Trivia

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  • Lee is a huge jazz fan and plays the trumpet.
  • He's the Co-owner of Stereo Skateboards, They make a collection with Kangol and Etnies.
  • WE are the Superlative Conspiracy sponsor him.
  • Lee is dedicated to a young girl named Sheelan whom he met in London and has apparently "not been the same since meeting her".
  • Lee is a fan of actor Burt Reynolds and often incorporates a reference to Reynolds in his work:
    • In Mallrats and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Lee uses the phrase "Reynolds style".
    • In Mallrats, he claims one character has an "iron grip handshake, like Burt Reynolds and shit".
    • In Mallrats, he makes a reference to a Halloween party in which two characters dressed up as Smokey and the Bandit and had sex with each other.
    • In Dogma, he goes to the door of "Mrs. Reynolds".
    • In Jersey Girl, he refers to Matt Damon's character as "Reynolds".
    • In My Name Is Earl, an episode involved Earl's brother Randy (played by Ethan Suplee) wanting to go to the county fair to see the car from the Burt Reynolds film Smokey and the Bandit.
    • Burt Reynolds himself guest starred on the September 28, 2006 episode of My Name Is Earl, where he played Richard Chubby, wealthy owner of Club Chubby, a seedy strip club.
  • Jason Lee used the phrase, "One side, red" in both Mallrats as Brodie and Dogma as Azrael. "One side, Red", is a phrase repeated in X-Men and Alpha Flight comic books featuring writer/artist John Byrne(the director of both films, Kevin Smith, is a comic book fan and writer).
  • The All Girl Summer Fun Band has a song devoted to Jason Lee on their album 2.
  • Jason Lee appears in the video game Tony Hawk's Project 8.
  • Jason Lee is the godfather of Kevin Smith's daughter, Harley Quinn.[4]

[edit] Credits

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Other media

[edit] References

  1. ^ Jason Lee Height - Lee's. CelebHeights.com. Retrieved on January 6, 2007.
  2. ^ Dianetics and Scientology Center Opens on Melrose in Los Angeles. Church of Scientology International. Retrieved on February 6, 2007.
  3. ^ ABC News: Celebrity Scientologists. ABC News. Retrieved on February 6, 2007.
  4. ^ Biography for Jason Lee (I). IMDb.com. Retrieved on February 6, 2007.

[edit] External links

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