Michael Vartan

Name: Michael Vartan

Birthdate: November 27, 1968
Birthplace:Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France
Occupation: Actor

Quote: "About five years ago, I made a conscious decision to take acting seriously. It's not an easy job, That's why I decided to stick to projects I really love because if the job's going to be hard, at least I'm going to do something I love. If you hate what you're doing and, on top of that, it's hard, that's not good." --Scene, May 1996

Claim to Fame: Played Sam Coulson, a young teacher lovestruck by an undercover reporter posing as a student (Drew Barrymore), in Never Been Kissed (1999)

Family: - Father: French - Mother American

Factoids:
Moved to Los Angeles with mother at age 18; began studying acting as a way to meet people

Education:
Left school at age 16

A little about him

French-American actor Michael Vartan made his handsome presence felt in several European and independent films before getting his Hollywood studio break in the romantic comedy Never Been Kissed (1999).

Born in Paris and raised in the small Normandy town of Fleury, the only child of a French father and an American mother who got divorced when he was only five. He spent his childhood shuttling between France (where his father, a musician lived) and the U.S (where his mother lived). At the age of eighteen, after deciding against joining the French military service (mandatory for all males above 18 in France) Michael shifted to the States to be with his American mother. Though he began taking acting classes in Los Angeles, Vartan nabbed his first film roles in the French productions Un Homme et Deux Femmes (1991) and Promenades d'Ete (1992). Still working in Europe, Vartan gained international attention as the doomed lover of the fabled title character in Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani's Fiorile (1993).

Returning to the Hollywood fold, Vartan appeared in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995) and The Pallbearer (1996). He played more substantial roles, however, in the indie AIDS drama Touch Me (1997) and college crime thriller The Curve (1998), as well as playing Julianne Moore's brother in Sundance entrant The Myth of Fingerprints (1997). Vartan finally earned his first starring role in a Hollywood studio production when star/executive producer Drew Barrymore insisted that he be cast opposite her in Never Been Kissed. As undercover reporter Barrymore's "high school" teacher, Vartan was an adult-teen dream come true; the movie went on to become Vartan's first Hollywood hit. Vartan was not so lucky, however, with his next Hollywood film, the critically lambasted Madonna vehicle The Next Best Thing (2000).

After he was impeccably cast as Lancelot in the lavish TV miniseries adaptation of The Mists of Avalon (2001), Vartan stayed with TV to play CIA agent Michael Vaughn, ally of Jennifer Garner's double agent Sydney Bristow, on the stylish, critically praised ABC action series Alias (2001).