Paul Rudd

Born: 6 April 1969
Where: Passaic , New Jersey

Rudd got his big screen breakthrough playing Alicia Silverstone's serious stepbrother in the hit comedy Clueless.

Born to British parents, he studied theatre at the University of Kansas before attending Pasadena's American Academy of Dramatic Arts on a Spencer Tracy Scholarship.

He also spent one term at Oxford's British Drama Academy, where he appeared as Hamlet, directed by Ben Kingsley.

While in England, he also co-produced the Globe Theatre's production of Bloody Poetry, in which he starred as Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Back in the US, Rudd received exposure with his first role as an aspiring film-maker on the series, Sisters.

He broke into movies in the mid-Nineties with Amy Heckerling's Clueless, only to accept a weak role in routine slasher Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers in 1995.

However, the following year he was back on track playing Paris in Baz Luhrmann's updated, rock 'n' roll version of William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet.

After sporting long, pointed sideburns for his role as a jilted lover in 200 Cigarettes, Rudd returned to the stage opposite Calista Flockhart in Bash, a trio of one-acts by Neil LaBute.

Moving back to the big screen, he co-starred as World War II pilot Wally Worthington in Lasse Hallstrom's The Cider House Rules, the first of John Irving's novels adapted by the writer himself.

Next up was the Hong Kong sci-fi cop yarn Gen-X Cops 2, which he followed with the weak summer camp comedy Wet Hot American Summer.

The weak independent comedy The Chateau did little to salvage his reputation but he was on firmer ground with Neil LaBute's ensemble work The Shape of Things.

Recent work includes the box office hit The 40 Year-Old Virgin with Steve Carell and Catherine Keener.