Jason Patric

Born in New York City in the borough of Queens, Patric is the eldest son and middle child of Academy Award–nominated actor and Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Jason Miller (born John Anthony Miller Jr.) and actress Linda Miller (born Linda Mae Gleason), and his maternal grandfather was actor/comedian Jackie Gleason. He has an older sister, Jennifer, and had a younger brother, Jordan (died January 10, 2024), and his half-brother is actor Joshua John Miller. His ancestry is mostly Irish, with some German.

Growing up in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, he attended schools such as Cavallini Middle School and the all-boys Catholic school Salesian Roman Catholic Don Bosco Preparatory High School (Ramsey, New Jersey). In California, he attended Saint Monica Catholic High School (Santa Monica, California).After graduation, he was cast in the television drama Toughlove with Bruce Dern. The following year, Patric was cast in Solarbabies alongside Peter DeLuise, Jami Gertz, Lukas Haas, James LeGros and Adrian Pasdar. Within a couple years, Patric would reunite with Gertz in The Lost Boys and After Dark, My Sweet with Dern. He co-starred with George Dzundza and Stephen Baldwin in The Beast.

In 1987, Patric had his breakout role as teenage vampire Michael Emerson in Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys. The film was a critical and commercial success and Patric's look in the film drew comparisons to The Doors' lead vocalist Jim Morrison, and he was considered to portray the singer in the 1991 biographical film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone, which later went to Val Kilmer.

In 1993, he starred alongside Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall as 1st Lt. Charles B. Gatewood in the movie Geronimo: An American Legend. His scenes in The Thin Red Line were cut before the film's release. He turned down the lead role in The Firm (1993), which went to Tom Cruise. He garnered excellent reviews for his performances as undercover narcotics officers in Rush (1991) and Narc (2002).

In 2005, Patric appeared on Broadway as "Brick" in a revival of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, opposite Ashley Judd, Ned Beatty and esteemed character actress Margo Martindale. He next appeared on Broadway opposite Brian Cox, Chris Noth, Kiefer Sutherland and Jim Gaffigan in a revival of his father Jason Miller's play, That Championship Season, which began previews on February 9, 2011, and closed on May 29, 2011. The play (written by Jason Miller) debuted in 1972, and won, among other awards, the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award.

In 2012, he began filming the Civil War film, Copperhead, but several weeks into the shoot, he was removed from the project by the director, Ronald F. Maxwell for "refusing to take instructions". His replacement was Billy Campbell.