Matt Weinberg

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Matthew Phillip Weinberg (born July 13, 1990) is an American actor.

Weinberg was born in Los Angeles, California to a Jewish American family. His younger brother is Mike Weinberg, who is also an actor.

When a family friend suggested that then 8 year-old Matt Weinberg would make a good child actor, his parents wanted no part of it and said no. When the parents were still saying no five months later, the friend decided to take matters into her own hands and sneaked a kids' agent into a gym where Matt was taking boxing lessons to meet him behind his parents' backs. The agent flipped for him and when asked, Matt said, "I'll give it a try", his parents consented and just a few months later, in late 1998, Matt was on a film set in Vancouver in his first acting job: a lead role starring opposite Oscar winners Ben Kingsley and Mercedes Ruehl in the independent feature Spooky House (2000) (coming to theaters in April 2002). Since then, Matt has been busy in both television and film. He landed one of the most sought-after kids roles of the 1999 pilot season when he was cast as Eli opposite Edward Asner in Imagine Television's "Eli's Theory" (1999). Viewers of "ER" (1994) saw Matt as a guest lead in an episode that aired in January 2002.

Marnie Cooper is Matt Weinberg's acting coach; Larry Moss has been his dialect coach. A student at a Los Angeles public school, Matt is also the starting shortstop for his little league team, the Giants. He lives in Los Angeles with his mom, Dana; his dad, Larry, a public relations executive; his brother Mike, 9 (also an actor) and their three dogs. And, his nay-saying parents are now his biggest fans.

Weinberg started acting in the late 1990s, appearing mostly on television. He had a minor role in the 2000 film, X-Men, appeared in the 2002 comedy, The Hot Chick, and voiced "Young Simba" in the 2004 direct-to-video animated film, The Lion King 1 1/2. He starred in the short 3-D film, R.L. Stine's Haunted Lighthouse, which debuted in several theme parks across the United States in 2003, where it is still playing.