Biography
Date of Birth
17 December 1994, Los Angeles, California, USA
Birth Name
Nathaniel Marvin Wolff
Nickname
Wolffman
Height
6' 0¾" (1.85 m)
Mini Biography
Nat Wolff is an American actor and singer-songwriter. He was born in Los Angeles, to jazz pianist Michael Wolff and actress/writer Polly Draper. He is the older brother of actor/musician Alex Wolff, and grew up in New York City.
Nat is known for his work starring in the television series The Naked Brothers Band (2007), along with his brother, and co-starring in the television film Mr. Troop Mom (2009), and the theatrical films Peace, Love & Misunderstanding (2011), Stuck in Love. (2012), Admission (2013), and Behaving Badly (2014). He also co-starred with Ansel Elgort and Shailene Woodley in the adaptation of the popular John Green novel The Fault in Our Stars (2014), and will next himself play the lead role in an adaptation of a Green book, Paper Towns (2015), opposite Cara Delevingne.
Trivia
Brother of Alex Wolff.
Son of Polly Draper and Michael Wolff.
He grew up attending private school in New York City.
The first song he wrote was titled "Momma Don't Let Me Cry".
He wrote, directed, and produced a short film titled "Don't Eat off My Plate" starring his parents in the summer of 2005.
"Rosalina" was originally called "Firefighters," which was a song dedicated to 9-11.
Nat is a regular at the Improv Comedy Club.
Has written over 170 songs.
David Levi, a cast member on The Naked Brothers Band (2007), has known Nat since they were about 4 years old.
Nat composes songs for The Naked Brothers Band (2007).
He and his family live in New York.
Nat occasionally plays the guitar.
Nat has been writing songs since the age of 5.
Jesse Draper from the The Naked Brothers Band (2007) is Nat's real-life cousin.
His favorite sport is basketball.
His favorite football team is the New York Giants.
Favorite hobby is playing piano.
He is a Sagittarius.
Favorite basketball team is the Los Angeles Lakers.
Favorite baseball team is the New York Yankees.
Member and band leader of Naked Brothers Band.
His father is of Russian Jewish, Polish Jewish, and German Jewish descent. His mother has English, German, some Scottish, 1/256 Portuguese, and distant French, Jersey (Channel Islander), and Welsh, ancestry. Nat's paternal grandparents were from Shelby, Mississippi and New Orleans, Louisiana, respectively, while Nat's maternal grandparents were born in New York.
On his father's side, he is the grandson of Marvin Lee Wolff, a doctor, and Lise Bertha Silverman, a social worker. On his mother's side, he is the grandson of William Henry Draper III, a venture capitalist who headed the United Nations Development Programme, and Phyllis Culbertson, a Peace Corps administrator. His maternal great-grandfather, William Henry Draper II, was a banker, diplomat, and army officer.
Through his mother, Nat is a descendant of Francis Cooke (c. 1583-1663), a Mayflower passenger, and captain Joseph Weld (1599-1646), one of the founders of the prominent Weld family of Massachusetts. Among Joseph Weld's other descendants are 68th Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld and actress Tuesday Weld.
His favorite movie is Taxi Driver (1976).
He was among the actors considered for the role of Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War (2016) before Tom Holland was cast.
Quotes
I feel like all the parts are seniors in high school and seventh graders, and I think I kinda skipped that awkward stage by not working those years.
'Holes' was my favorite book ever. So you know when you love a book and you hear it's being made into a movie and it makes you a little annoyed at first? But I would've loved to play the Shia LaBeouf role in that movie when I was younger. I just wanted to be the rebellious kid on the old digging camp.
I have very weirdly realistic dreams where it could be real life, except it's not.
Every single movie I go up for I'm just checking the phone to see if the e-mail's come in, to see if I got the part yet, which makes me more anxious.
I think music is my favorite thing to do, but I go through periods where I think differently.
It's jarring to go from one amazing experience to another that feels ordinary. I don't quite know how to explain it. You see the uniqueness of what you've been doing, and disassociating yourself from it and going back to the 'normal' life is tough.
I think as long as I have a creative outlet, I'm happy.
Jazz is smooth and cool. Jazz is rage. Jazz flows like water. Jazz never seems to begin or end. Jazz isn't methodical, but jazz isn't messy either. Jazz is a conversation, a give and take. Jazz is the connection and communication between musicians. Jazz is abandon.
When romance is done well in a movie, it's awesome.
I've been kind of lucky. I've always just kind of followed whatever my passion was, and that seems to have led me to better places than if I had followed some career trajectory, which I wouldn't even know how to start.
I've been playing my instrument since I was about three or four. That's when I started banging around on the piano, trying to be like The Beatles.
Jazz is a constant theme in my life. My father is a jazz pianist, and from an early age I have been surrounded by it.
I love James Taylor, Jeff Buckley, Elliott Smith and Nine Inch Nails.
If I'm not doing anything, I get really antsy and bored.
I had parents in the business and they made sure that the art was the biggest concern.
It's just become such a business, getting into college. I see that a lot in my friends, their parents were so on top of them about getting into an Ivy League school since they were so young, they were just drilled and drilled and drilled, to the point that they just don't know why they want to go.
I think Paul Weitz is a really amazing director, obviously with tons of acclaim and stuff, but I still think he is underrated. And I think he's amazing to work with, so I was super lucky.
Now, everybody knows my music. So that's really cool. A lot of kids know it. Now, when I go to a sports game, everybody knows my name.
I would not describe myself as an avid jazz fan and I am not a jazz musician myself. However, that is not to say that jazz does not play a vital and important role in my life.
Paul Rudd is too perfect. He's super talented, super nice and super calm. I just think he's a robot.
I have learned a lot from jazz. I compare good acting to jazz music. The more you study and prepare as an actor, the more equipped you are to live in the moment. Just like the gifted musicians in my dad's quartet, it takes a courageous actor to be free.
I can play a bunch of instruments but drums? My brother's a drummer and I've always been jealous that he's such a good drummer. I always try to play but it's always kinda just bashing. I can keep time but no one really wants to hear me play drums.
Paul McCartney and The Beatles in general are my idols. And I love Sting. I got to meet Sting. That was really cool. Dustin Hoffman is my favorite actor. Also, I think of Magic Johnson as an idol.
There's no master plan; I'm just going with what I'm inspired to do and what I get asked to do, and luckily the things I've been the most passionate about, I've gotten to do. And a lot of times I've gone up for movies that I didn't really care that much about, and I never got that.
I'm a huge Nirvana fan.
