Matthew Davis

The thoughtfully squinting eyes peering from beneath the thick brow of this Hollywood brunette have mesmerized fans, as well as directors, in a rapid succession of mainstream film appearances. They can be found on the face of handsome Matthew Davis, who made suddenly frequent film appearances in his early twenties, after laboring on-stage in New York for some time. He was born on May 8, 1978, in Salt Lake City, UT, where he grew up before venturing to New York and then to Los Angeles. His first starring role came in 2000, when he was just 22, with Colin Farrell in Tigerland. Davis portrayed a writer in the Vietnam War, thus beginning a series of appearances in war films. That same year, he played a dual role as twins in Urban Legends: Final Cut, a role that allowed Davis to explore his range in the genre of mystery/horror. In 2001, he appeared in the role of Lt. Joe Olson in the blockbuster Pearl Harbor, the dramatization of the World War II event starring Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett. Shifting gears from his work on the battlegrounds once again, he starred opposite Reese Witherspoon as the ex-boyfriend she follows to Harvard Law in the romantic comedy Legally Blonde, also in 2001. While neither film was critically successful, both gave Davis a tremendous amount of media limelight, and big roles would continue the following year. Another World War II film, Below (2002), featured Davis as captain of a submarine, and blended the genre-boundaries of war film into more horrific and science fiction-oriented themes. Bouncing back into the romantic comedy world, he starred in the adventurous surfing film Blue Crush and then Lone Star State of Mind, the latter with Joshua Jackson and James King, both also in 2002. - Sarah Sloboda, All Movie Guide