Jason Schwartzman

Born: 26 June 1980
Where: Los Angeles, California, USA

The actor attracted early interest for the role of Max Fischer in Wes Anderson's cult romantic comedy Rushmore.

He also enjoys a parallel career outside film as a musician - he released a single with Evan Dando and provided a song for the movie Orange County.

A nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, and a cousin of Nicolas Cage, he never sought a career in movies but attracted attention in 1998 for Rushmore.

In fact, his first attempt to break into films failed - he auditioned for the part of Tom Hanks' matchmaking son in Sleepless In Seattle, and was rejecting by the casting agent.

After Rushmore, he starred in another cult hit - Slackers - which was followed by a role in C.Q, directed by his cousin Roman Coppola and screened at Cannes.

In 2001 Schwartzman raised his profile, appearing in the comedy The Royal Tenenbaums opposite Gwyneth Paltrow and a featured role alongside Al Pacino in Simone.

Then he went on to work on the drug-fuelled slacker movie Spun with Brittany Murphy and Mickey Rourke.

Then came I Heart Huckabees, the philosophical comedy also starring Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin, Jude Law, Naomi Watts, Mark Wahlberg and directed by David O Russell.

Jason plays the part of Albert Markovski, an environmental activist who seeks help from the Existential Detectives to uncover a series of coincidences.