Eric Christian Olsen

Eric Christian Olsen (born Tuesday May 31, 1977) is an American actor.

Biography

Early life

Olsen was born in Eugene, Oregon, the son of Jeanne, a non-denominational chaplain, and Paul Olsen, a professor of English and head track and cross country coach of Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois.^[1][2] He spent most of his childhood in Bettendorf, Iowa and attended Bettendorf High School, where he pursued such interests as sports and Japanese.

Career

In 1999, he went to California with $500 in his pocket. In his first week he scored a guest role on the ABC-TV series High Incident, produced by Steven Spielberg. He found early critical acclaim with an Emmy submitted portrayal of a dying burn victim on NBC's "ER". His next role was a small one in HBO's Black Cat Run. The casting agent on "ER" called the producers of a new show and Eric soon landed a starring role in the Fox TV series Get Real, playing Cameron Green. The series lasted for a year before Eric made his transition onto the big screen when he played Ben Affleck's gunner in Pearl Harbor, that was quickly followed by a leading role as Austin "The Cocky Blond Guy" in the teen send up feature film Not Another Teen Movie.

One day, after a bad audition, Olsen bought a surfboard and taught himself to surf and soon fell in love with the sport. In Local Boys, he got the chance to show off the surfing skills. Olsen next played Jake in the teen comedy The Hot Chick. He then got surprisingly rave reviews in a contrastly panned movie by playing Lloyd Christmas in Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd the prequel to the hit movie Dumb and Dumber. Olsen followed that up by playing opposite Chris Evans for the second time in Cellular. He starred in the yet to be released "Mojave" and then joined the final season of Fox's "Tru Calling". He claimed three highly contrasting roles in 2006 and 2007 with the release of "Beerfest" , "License to Wed" and another praised performance in Zach Braff's "The Last Kiss". Olsen co-starred as Sully in the Fox sitcom The Loop. He recently graduated from Pepperdine University with a degree in Child Psychology under Liberal Arts. Olsen has 4 more projects to be released in 2008 and continues to reside in Malibu CA.

He has achieved cult fame on Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's streaming video website Funny or Die, with a small series of segments featuring a character called Perry Hilton, an obvious parody of Paris Hilton, along with his own catchphrase "Life's tasty", an obvious parody of Paris' "That's hot". There are at least three small films circulating: one about Perry outside of the Hyde Lounge while not wearing underwear (a parody of similar scandals involving both Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears), another in which he gets arrested for DUI outside of his home and resists arrest (during which he requests a hair and makeup crew for his mugshot so he doesn't end up looking like Nick Nolte), and yet another in which he "unintentionally" annoys Jeremy Piven with invitations to his home while Piven waits to receive his car from a valet. He also is in the Eva Longoria "sex tape" spoof as his character.

Filmography

• Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction (1997)
• Black Cat Run (1998) (TV) .... Gas Station Attendant
• Arthur's Quest (1999) (TV) .... Artie/King Arthur
• Turks .... Kevin Williams (1999)
• ER .... Travis Mitchell
• Get Real (1999) TV Series .... Cameron Green
• Lessons Learned (2000) (TV)
• Ruling Class (2001) (TV) .... Bill Olszewski
• Pearl Harbor (2001) .... Gunner
• Smallville .... Young Harry Bollston
• Not Another Teen Movie (2001) .... Austin
• Local Boys (2002) .... Randy Dobson
• The Hot Chick (2002) .... Jake
• 24 .... John Mason
• Mean People Suck (2003) .... Nick
• Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003) .... Lloyd Christmas
• Cellular (2004) .... Chad
• Death Valley (2004) .... Josh
• Tru Calling .... Jensen Ritchie
• Beerfest (2006) .... Gunther
• The Last Kiss (2006) .... Kenny
• The Loop .... Sully Sullivan ...
• And She Was (2007) (TV) .... Jason
• License to Wed (2007) .... Carlisle
• The Comebacks (2007) .... Foreign Exchange Student
• The Hill (2007) (TV) .... Matt
• Write & Wrong (2007) ... Jason 'Krueger' Langdon
• Sunshine Cleaning (2008) .... Randy
• Eagle Eye (2008) .... Craig
• Brothers & Sisters (2008) .... Kyle DeWitt
• Fired Up (2009) .... Nick Brady
• The Back-Up Plan (2009)
• Community (2009) (TV) .... Vaughn

Self

• The 100 Scariest Movie Moments (2004) (mini) TV Series .... Himself
• The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn .... Himself

References

External links

• Eric Christian Olsen at the Internet Movie Database
• Perry Hilton on Funny or die