Eric Roberts #1
Eric Roberts #1
Batman: The Dark Knight, Star 80, Runaway Train, King of the Gypsies
Eric Roberts started life in Biloxi, Mississippi, but grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. He began his acting career at age 5 in a local theater company called the Actors and Writers Workshop founded by his late father, Walter Roberts. After his schooling at Grady High, he studied drama at age 17 in London for two years at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, then returned to the States and continued his studies at the American Academy in New York. He made his NY stage debut in Rebel Women in 1976 at age 20 and appeared in regional productions.
After appearing in daytime soaps Another World and How to Survive a Marriage, he won a leading role in a major film. In King of the Gypsies (1978), he made his film debut alongside Judd Hirsch, Susan Sarandon, Shelley Winters and Sterling Hayden. He won a Golden Globe nomination for his work in this film.
In 1981, he co-starred with Sissy Spacek as a small-town stranger in Raggedy Man. Two years later, his frightening portrayal of two-bit hustler Paul Snider, killer of Playmate-turned-movie starlet Dorothy Stratten (Mariel Hemingway) in Star 80 earned him a second Golden Globe nomination.
He went on to play a dangerous streetwise hustler in The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984) opposite Mickey Rourke; a cocky soda pop marketing executive in The Coca-Cola Kid (1985); a stage troupe crew member opposite Rosanna Arquette in the offbeat romantic comedy Nobody's Fool (1986) and garnered an Academy Award nomination as a young prison escapee hiding out with Jon Voight aboard a Runaway Train (1985).
At the Sundance Film Festival in 1996, he received critical applause for his starring role as a man dying of AIDS in the uplifting and emotional film It's My Party. That same year, he was cast as one of the cold-blooded killers in the Emmy-nominated TV adaptation of Truman Capote's chiller In Cold Blood. And he became the 5th actor to portray the Master in the television series Dr. Who.
Eric played the role of Will Butler in 60 episodes of the TV Series, Less Than Perfect (2002-2006).
In 2008, he was Sal Maroni, a Gotham City Mafia boss who hires The Joker (Heath Ledger) to kill Batman (Christian Bale) in the blockbuster The Dark Knight.
He has quite a number of film projects currently in various stages of production. Recently, he appeared in Heroes (7 episodes) and Crash (13 episodes).
Visit his official web site and join him on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.