Biography for
Liev Schreiber More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

4 October 1967, San Francisco, California, USA

Birth Name

Isaac Liev Schreiber

Nickname

Huggy

Height

6' 3" (1.91 m)

Mini Biography

Liev (pronounced Lee-ev) is the son of Heather, a painter, and Tell Schreiber, a theatrical actor with a small role in The Keeper (1976). When he was one, the family moved from San Francisco to Canada. His parents were divorced when he was five. He and his mother moved to New York, where she drove a cab. During that time, they lived as squatters in abandoned buildings. His mother taught him to read, and she also forbade him from seeing color movies. He grew up seeing silent and black & white movies at a local revival house and particularly enjoyed those of Charles Chaplin. His mother now lives in an ashram in Virginia. He began acting at Hampshire College and continued at the Yale University School of Drama in 1992. He originally wanted to be a playwright, but his teacher encouraged him to become an actor.

IMDb Mini Biography By: John Sacksteder

Trivia

Grew up in Lower East Side New York. Graduated from Friends Seminary High School in Manhattan.

Attended London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Hampshire College and graduated from Yale.

Son of actor Tell Schreiber and Heather. Has four half brothers and one half sister, including brother Pablo Schreiber.

His mother says she named him after her favorite author, Leo Tolstoy whose Russian name was Lev (pronounced "lee-ev"). His father says he was named after a doctor in San Francisco who saved his mother's life. Last name means "writer" in German.

Attended high school with actress Amanda Peet when he was a senior and she was a freshman.

His mother is of German-Ukranian-Polish heritage (maternal grandfather was from Ukraine) and his father was of Austrian-Scottish-Swiss heritage.

Frequently does voice-over and narration work for advertisements and documentaries.

Prefers to keep his dating life private, although he has been romantically linked to actress Kristin Davis and to film producer Kate Driver (Minnie Driver's sister). He accompanied his girlfriend Naomi Watts to the King Kong (2005) premiere in New York. It was their first public appearance together. On February 28, 2007, they announced they are expecting their first child.

Has worked with actress Rose McGowan in two different horror films - Scream (1996/I) and Phantoms (1998).

Along with David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and Jamie Kennedy, he is one of only five actors to appear in all three Scream films.

After his parents divorced, he and his siblings saw their father very little during childhood.

The role for which he won his first Tony award (Richard Roma in Glengarry Glen Ross) also won Joe Mantegna the Featured Actor in a Play Tony for the same role 21 years earlier in 1984. The 2005 production was directed by Joe Mantello.

Won the 2005 Tony Award best featured actor in a play for Glengarry Glen Ross.

Grew up in Lower East Side New York.

Growing up, his mother didn't allow him to watch color movies. The first color movie he saw was Star Wars in 1977.

Broadway Debut in 1993 In the Summer House.

Is a good friend of Dustin Hoffman.

Was a fan favorite for the role of District Attorney Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight (2008), and expressed interest for the role. He eventually lost out to Aaron Eckhart.

The actor and his fiancée, Naomi Watts, welcomed their first child, a healthy baby boy, on July 25, 2007. Alexander Pete Schreiber, who was born at 3:59 p.m. in Los Angeles, weighed 8 lbs., 4 oz, and was 22.5 inches long (Alexander is for his grandfather and Peter is for her father, Peter Watts).

Second son with Naomi Watts born December 14, 2008.

Second son is named Samuel Kai.

Nominated for the 2007 Tony Award (New York City) for Actor in a Drama for "Talk Radio".

Close friends with Hugh Jackman.

Personal Quotes

"It's not easy being 6' 3" and being called 'Huggy'." - on the nickname he's had since childhood

I think a certain amount of Ricky's rage and profanity has been a nice vent from the frustrations of the editing room, so it's great to come out screaming profanities at the audience for an hour and a half after eight hours of trying to be diplomatic in the editing room." on editing 'Everything is Illuminated' at the same time as acting as foul-mouthed Ricky Roma in "Glengarry Glen Ross

"Trying to escape the powder puff and the man blush was the primary motivation for this whole endeavor. It's weird. You think, 'Now I'm going to direct, and they won't give me such a hard time about how I look.' But sure enough, there they are, coming at you with the powder puff and the man blush." [on the make-up required to 'hide' his nose]

That's the hard thing about adapting a book that's so well loved. It's like playing Hamlet. The audience doesn't buy it, because they're Hamlet. How could you possibly be Hamlet when Hamlet is them? It's one of those difficult things where a good writer gives the reader ownership of the material. They develop an intimate relationship with it and become its protectors, and rightly so. Whether they like the movie or not, there is something a bit outrageous about exploiting their private story.

If you are going to remake a film, you may as well remake a classic. I do think great stories have a way of retelling themselves. The medium is so young that so much is not content-driven, it's about stars and the studio. But when we have gotten through that phase of film, which I figure we probably will in about 15 or 20 years, films will be able to stand on the legs of their stories.

Style, no matter how outrageous it is, is still an expression of someone's personality. And my personality is somewhere stuck in the classics.

You can think about your career or you can think about your job. I like to think about my job.

It's good to overexpose yourself with work. But don't expose yourself too much with the press.

I am so used to being able to express myself from being an actor. So when people don't understand me, I'm just completely lost.

Everyone assumes that novelists are smarter and more interesting. They're generally smarter and more interesting, but they're often very short. So it kind of cancels all the smart and interesting stuff out.

"When I'm doing classical theater, I feel engaged and all pistons running and like I'm on new territory, because the size of it is so much bigger and the scope so much broader." - to Variety (05/1999)

People always pronounce it Leave. I walk into a casting person's office and the first thing I usually hear is 'Leave!'

Where Are They Now

(March 2007) In Talk Radio! on Broadway, which runs until June 24, 2007.

(June 2006) Attends worldwide premiere of The Omen (2006) with other cast members and director John Moore.

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