He touched every level of Hollywood before turning 26, lost it to addiction, and rebuilt at a lower altitude with steadier hands.
At a glance
- Known for
- John Connor in Terminator 3, Ben Hawkins in HBO's Carnivale
- Before fame
- Decided to become an actor at age four after seeing a children's play
- Off-screen
- Went missing twice in 2012, got sober around 2017, moved back to Texas
Rise to Fame
The first role that mattered came at 13, when Mel Gibson picked him for The Man Without a Face. Modest box office, but an industry calling card. By 21, he was in In the Bedroom, a Todd Field drama that earned five Oscar nominations. Two years later, he beat Jake Gyllenhaal for John Connor in Terminator 3, going through five auditions and three screen tests to get there.
HBO gave him the lead in Carnivale, and Rodriguez covered him in full-body prosthetics as the Yellow Bastard in Sin City. Between 2001 and 2005, he touched every tier: Oscar contender, franchise blockbuster, cult TV, auteur genre film. Most actors spend a career chasing one of those. He had all four before turning 26.
In the Spotlight
The career that took a decade to build took about two years to collapse. His wife filed a missing persons report in 2012 after he vanished into LA's Skid Row to buy drugs. A meth arrest followed in 2013. He's called it "a horribly cliche child-actor story," which is accurate if generous.
He moved back to Texas, got sober, and stayed away from cameras for roughly five years. The comeback has been steady but modest: Fear the Walking Dead, Showtime's Let the Right One In, a reunion with Gibson in Confidential Informant. Variety praised his "quiet power" in What You Wish For. He's working again, just not at the altitude where he started.
Side Notes
Three phrases follow him across decades of reviews: "quiet power," "vaguely menacing stillness," "subdued." Larry Clark sought him specifically for Bully because he wanted to subvert what a bully looks like on screen. Rodriguez buried him under prosthetics for Sin City. Even his comeback roles lean dark: a submarine weapons officer pulled into a doomsday cult in Fear the Walking Dead, a fixer whose "mild-mannered exterior belies a savagery beneath" in Let the Right One In.
The stillness isn't performed. His father left before he was born. His mother raised three kids on a brokerage assistant's salary. He decided at four years old that acting was the path, and nothing that happened after, not the drugs, not the disappearances, not the arrests, moved him off it.