Biography
Date of Birth
19 December 1992, Beverly Hills, California, USA
Birth Name
Logan Wade Lerman
Nickname
Loggie
Height
5' 7½" (1.71 m)
Mini Biography
One of today's leading talents across both independent and mainstream film, Logan Lerman is an immensely talented actor who takes on challenging roles and brings dynamic characters to life on screen.
Logan was born in Beverly Hills, to a Jewish family. His parents are Lisa (Goldman), who worked as his manager, and Larry Lerman, an orthotist and businessman. He has two siblings, Lindsey and Lucas, both older. His family operate the orthotics and prosthetics company Lerman & Son, which was founded by his great-grandfather, Jacob Lerman.
When he was two and a half years old, Logan told his mother that he wanted to be an actor. At the age of four, Logan had an agent and was booked for two commercials. He made his big screen debut as William, the youngest son of Mel Gibson's character, in Roland Emmerich's war drama The Patriot (2000), and then appeared as the younger version of Gibson's character Nick Marshall in Nancy Meyers's romantic comedy What Women Want (2000). After a small role in 2001's Riding in Cars with Boys (2001), by 'Penny Marshall', he starred in the John Grisham adaptation A Painted House (2003), a made-for-television film that won him the first of his three Young Artist Awards.
Logan played the younger version of Ashton Kutcher's character, Evan, in The Butterfly Effect (2004). After a guest-starring role in 10-8: Officers on Duty (2003), he starred in the WB Network's series Jack & Bobby (2004), where he portrays Bobby (Robert) McCallister, a teenager who will grow up to be President of the United States. After the show's cancellation in 2005, Logan returned to film, starring in the family adventure Hoot (2006). The next year, he played the son of Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) in the dark thriller The Number 23 (2007), and co-starred with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale in James Mangold's critically-acclaimed Western remake 3:10 to Yuma (2007). His next two roles were a foul-mouthed private school student in the comedy Meet Bill (2007) and actor George Hamilton in the period drama My One and Only (2009). Both were independent films that received limited releases. Also in 2009, Logan appeared with Gerard Butler in the R-rated action thriller Gamer (2009), as a foul-mouthed teenager who controls Butler's character in a real-life video game.
In 2010, Logan starred as Percy in the fantasy adventure Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010), based on the best-selling young adult book series of the same title. The film gave him notice among a wider audience. Subsequently, he starred as D'Artagnan in a remake of The Three Musketeers (2011), which was Logan's grandfather's favorite childhood book. Lerman then headlined the coming-of-age indie drama The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), alongside Emma Watson, Paul Rudd and Ezra Miller, based on the 1999 novel of the same name. Perks garnered numerous nominations and wins at the People's Choice Awards, The Independent Spirit Awards and the Teen Choice Awards, and Logan received a 2013 Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actor in a Drama. Around this time, he had a supporting role in the independent film Stuck in Love. (2012), and returned to star in Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013).
His first 2014 role was in Darren Aronofsky's acclaimed Biblical epic film Noah (2014), playing one of the title character's sons, Ham. The film, also starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Anthony Hopkins, Douglas Booth, and Emma Watson, grossed over $100 million at the North American box office. Logan next starred with Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Bernthal, and Michael Peña in the World War II-set action drama Fury (2014); in the film, he played one of several American soldiers engaged in tank combat against the German forces, during the last weeks of the Nazi regime.
Lerman next played the lead in writer-director James Schamus's 1950s-set drama Indignation (2016). Logan received rave reviews for his performance as Marcus Messner, an idealistic Jewish atheist from Newark who travels to Ohio to study at a conservative Midwestern Lutheran college. The film is based on Philip Roth's bestselling novel of the same name, and premiered at 2016's Sundance Film Festival.
In 2018, Logan voiced real-life soldier Robert Conroy in Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero (2018), about the famous World War I war dog. He began the 2020s starring with Al Pacino and Josh Radnor in the stylish television drama Hunters (2020), playing Jonah Heidelbaum, a Brooklyn teenager who joins a group hunting down escaped Nazis. His upcoming roles include Sean Fogle in the Irish-set drama End of Sentence (2019), with John Hawkes as his character's father, and Fred Nemser in the thriller Shirley (2020).
When Logan is not working, he likes to play soccer and baseball. He is an LA Lakers fan.
Trivia
He announced to his mother at the age of 2 1/2 that he was going to be an actor, after watching a Jackie Chan movie.
Logan is an LA Lakers fan.
Appeared with Mel Gibson twice in 2000, once as his character's son in The Patriot (2000) and once as the younger version of his own character in What Women Want (2000).
Plays soccer and baseball (both team sports) and plans to take tennis lessons.
The Jack & Bobby (2004) theme music is from The Patriot (2000), composed by John Williams. Lerman also starred in The Patriot (2000); it was his first movie role as Mel Gibson's youngest son.
Is best friends with Dean Collins. The two met on set of Jack & Bobby (2004) and make short films in their free time.
Has two siblings, Lindsey Lerman and Lucas Lerman.
His mother, Lisa (Goldman), works as his manager, and his father, Larry Lerman, is an orthotist and businessman.
His family owns a prosthetics company named Lerman & Son. His great-grandfather, Jacob Lerman, founded the company in 1915.
Logan attended Beverly Hills High School, from which he graduated in 2010. His yearbook quote was "Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." The line appeared in the opening moments of the 2009 Coen Brothers film A Serious Man (2009). The film credited the line to Rashi (1040-1105), a medieval Talmudist.
He has stated that his three favorite performances are Edward Norton in Fight Club (1999), Kevin Spacey in American Beauty (1999), and Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man (1976).
Owns two dogs, named Lola and Stella.
Logan attended Hebrew School and had a Bar Mitzvah ceremony, in a Conservative Jewish synagogue.
Logan is of entirely Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Logan's grandparents were born in 4 different countries. Logan's paternal grandfather, Max Lerman, was born in 1927, in Berlin, Germany, to a Jewish family from Poland. They left Germany in the 1930s, because of the Nazi regime, and lived in Shanghai, China, until the late 1940s (in the 1930s and early 1940s, Shanghai took in Jewish refugees). Logan's paternal grandmother, Mina Schwartz, was born in Mexico City, Mexico, to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Abraham and Zisla. Logan's maternal grandfather, Jay Goldman, was a Jewish immigrant from Poland. Logan's maternal grandmother, Susan Freeman (originally "Freedman"), was born in Los Angeles, California; Susan's parents, who were raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, were both from Jewish families from Eastern Europe (Russia, Poland, and Lithuania).
Logan has stated that he has been a "film geek" since a young age, with his favorite filmmakers including David Fincher, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Stanley Kubrick.
Logan is a relative, by marriage, of twin singers Evan Lowenstein and Jaron Lowenstein. One of Logan's maternal great-grandfathers, born Louis Abraham Freedman, had a sister named Esther Freedman. Esther's husband, Joseph Winestock, had a sister, Adella Winestock, who was one of Evan and Jaron Lowenstein's maternal great-grandmothers.
Was considered for the role of Romeo in Romeo & Juliet (2013). Douglas Booth was cast instead.
Was considered for Peter Parker/Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), before the role went to Andrew Garfield. On April 10, 2010, Drew McWeeny of HitFix reported that Logan was "almost 100% locked" in to play the role, a story carried by most film news sites. In both the 2010 and 2015 casting cycles for Spider-Man, no actor reported by film websites as being all-but-confirmed for the role has ever ended up actually cast as Spider-Man. The other actors erroneously reported to have been cast are Jamie Bell (in early June 2010), Josh Hutcherson (on June 30, 2010, one day before the official casting of Andrew Garfield), Dylan O'Brien (in March 2015), and Asa Butterfield (in May 2015).
Formed a band called Indigo with Dean Collins in 2006, along with musician Daniel Pashman; Collins sang lead vocals, Lerman played keyboard and guitar, and Pashman played the drums.
Plays the piano and is a fan of movie music compositions.
Has said that his biggest ambition is to direct films, and that his acting work is a stepping stone to becoming a director.
Has appeared in two films with Jason Isaacs, The Patriot (2000), as William Martin and Col. William Tavington, and Fury (2014), as Norman Ellison and Captain Waggoner, respectively. Both are war films. In the former, their characters were on opposite sides, and in the latter, working together.
He has said that he signed on to play d'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers (2011) because Alexandre Dumas' 1844 novel The Three Musketeers was his grandfather's favorite book as a child, and practically the only book he was able to take with him when he left Nazi Germany.
Is said to resemble Dylan Minnette, Zac Efron, Robby Benson, and Dylan O'Brien. Lately, others have added Pete Buttigieg to the list.
During his interview in The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Rosario Dawson/Logan Lerman/Megan Thee Stallion (2020) revealed that while filming My One and Only (2009), Renée Zellweger found out about his interest in music and gifted him a guitar that he's used ever since.
Trademarks:
Blue eyes
Quotes
[about his character in Jack & Bobby (2004)] "The kind of boy few people really understand. He's a bit of a misfit."
I'd much rather play sports with my free time. I also like watching classic movies and watching certain TV shows, like The Simpsons (1989). I'm a big basketball fan too. That would be my sport of choice.
[Portraying a geek is] "Fun. I'm not the kind of guy kids picked on in school, but I've seen it happen. I've never really given much thought to being cool. I don't really think about it one way or the other."
I'm not the kind of guy who got into this to be famous.
The best thing about this is being able to learn from, and act with, your heroes.
I just don't want to repeat the same thing over and over again, so I'm always looking for something that's going to be challenging and make me nervous every time I start a project.
I'm from Los Angeles and acting was accessible. There's always a place to wait in line for an audition and I kind of begged my parents to take me. My mom nurtured my career and helped me climb the ladder. I have had a passion for movies from a young age. I first got interested in acting when I was probably four or five.
Some people don't have an open mind, and when I was traveling to different places I think I found it hard to enjoy things. You know, I come from a great city where there are lots of things happening, and if you end up in a small town where you don't have all those things you can feel the difference. Somewhere along the way, though, I think I learned to appreciate the difference.
They say every year you put off university is like three years if you want to go back. But, for now, this seems like the right path.
I play music. I love learning a new instrument and creating songs; it also goes hand in hand with filmmaking, like creating a feeling and emotion in music to complement a scene. Songwriting, guitar, piano, bass, ukulele, a little bit of violin, a little bit of everything - primarily guitar and piano. It's just a hobby for now, maybe it would turn into a profession someday... who knows.
I've always been able to just go off for a couple of months, shoot a film, go back to school and have my regular life. My family thought it was really important to have that level of normalcy. You kind of need to keep that in order to even tap into a character, let alone be a functioning human being.
[on his similarities to his character in The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)] I guess with his awkwardness and trying to figure things out in that time period and how to socialize and fit in. I guess I wasn't as naive as him, but I definitely had the morals that he had... A lot of situations in the script have actually happened to me in real life, so I just connected with it.
[on not enjoying watching his own work] I didn't watch Perks until it was released... I really liked it, but felt uncomfortable watching it. I know it's a character and everything, but it's still uncomfortable to watch... That's kind of how I feel about Fury right now.
[on his similarity to his character, Marcus, in Indignation (2016)] I share very similar views to Marcus. I come from a Jewish family, as well. I definitely identify myself as being Jewish, and I'm proud of my background. But I have the same questions as Marcus has in his mind about life and religion. I'm questioning - I question things and I have no answers.
