Adam Driver

Adam Driver really lived up to his last name. An occasional theatre performer and singer in his suburban Indiana high school, the intense but directionless Driver signed up for the Marines shortly after 9/11 and spent nearly three years training for overseas combat before being honorably discharged. After graduating from the famed Juilliard School, Driver brought his darkly magnetic presence to a string of minor TV appearances and landed small roles in HBO's Dr. Kevorkian biopic "You Don't Know Jack" (2010) and the lumbering "J. Edgar" (2011). But it was his performance on the buzzy, bruising "Girls" (HBO, 2012-17) as Adam Sackler, Lena Dunham's emotionally complicated boyfriend, that brought him into the spotlight. Big-screen roles in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" (2012), the Coen Brothers' folk-scene homage "Inside Llewyn Davis" (2013), and Noah Baumbach's indie hit "Frances Ha" (2012) ensured he stayed there. While his nuanced performance as Kylo Ren in the much-anticipated "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" (2015) and "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" (2017) brought Driver to a whole new level of international superstardom, his work in smaller films like Jim Jarmusch's "Paterson" (2016), Baumbach's "The Meyerowitz Stories" (2017), Steven Soderbergh's "Logan Lucky" (2017) and Spike Lee's "Black Klansman" (2018) kept him true to his indie roots. In between films, Driver co-founded Arts in the Armed Forces, a non-profit organization that staged theatrical and musical performances for members of the military.

Born in 1983 just before Thanksgiving, Driver spent his early childhood in Southern California; after his parents divorced, he moved with his mother and stepfather to Mishawaka, IN. Though he displayed considerable singing and acting talent in high school, Driver graduated from school with only vague ideas of becoming an actor and after several false starts, joined the Marines, where he trained for two and a half years before a biking accident sent him home with an honorable medical discharge. His newfound sense of purpose and discipline brought him back to acting, and after a brief stint at the University of Indianapolis, Driver set a personal challenge for himself by applying - and being accepted - to New York City's prestigious Juilliard School. Upon his graduation in 2009, Driver, who by then had planted the seeds for Arts in the Armed Forces with a short theater performance at Camp Pendleton in San Diego, CA, turned to TV. After making his TV debut on the short-lived cop series The Unusuals" (ABC, 2009), Driver was featured in "You Don't Know Jack," starring Al Pacino as the infamous Dr. Kevorkian; and Clint Eastwood's disappointingly stuffy "J. Edgar." By then he had founded AITAF as a way to deal with his guilt over leaving behind his military friends. The non-profit group bridged the gap between civilians and service men and woman, and counted such well-known actors and writers as Laura Linney, Susan Sarandon and Eric Bogosian as council advisors. 2012 proved a momentous year for the lanky, unpredictable actor; he landed the breakout role of would-be carpenter Adam on "Girls," and appeared as a telegraph operator in the Oscar-winning "Lincoln." His role as an on-the-prowl roommate in the critically-acclaimed "Frances Ha" was actually filmed before "Girls," and appeared as a struggling folk singer in The Coen Brothers' '60s-set "Inside Llewyn Davis" (2013). The following year, Driver co-starred in the Australian Outback drama "Tracks" (2014), the romantic comedy "What If" (2014) opposite Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan, the estranged-family comedy-drama "This Is Where I Leave You" (2014) with Jason Bateman and Tina Fey, and a reunion with Noah Baumbach in "While We're Young" (2014). The following year, Driver starred as Kylo Ren in J.J. Abrams' "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" (2015), a role he reprised in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" (2017). Between those massive tentpole movies, Driver maintained a steady pace as an actor, appearing in science fiction drama "Midnight Special" (2016) and Martin Scorsese's spiritual drama "Silence" (2016) and starring in Jim Jarmusch's "Paterson" (2016) and Stephen Soderbergh's "Logan Lucky" (2017). He also reteamed with Baumbach in the Adam Sandler-starring "The Meyerowitz Stories" (2017) before returning to the role of Kylo Ren in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" (2017). Driver worked with Spike Lee in the '70s-set drama "Black Klansman" (2018) and starred in the final version of Terry Gilliam's legendarily troubled "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" (2018).