Garrett Hedlund

Where many model-turned-actors found it necessary to spend years proving themselves capable of doing credible work, small town country boy Garrett Hedlund went from obscurity to legitimacy only weeks after he landed in Los Angeles in pursuit of his passion for acting.

Almost instantly, Hedlund found himself on Hollywood's radar as Patroclus in Wolfgang Petersen's epic "Troy" (2004), as well as one of the lead football players in the sports drama, "Friday Night Lights" (2004). Noteworthy for his portrayal as Mark Wahlberg's younger brother in crime thriller "Four Brothers" (2005), and for his role in the dragon fantasy "Eragon" (2006), Hedlund also made the occasional box-office misstep by appearing in the critically panned Lindsay Lohan drama, "Georgia Rule" (2007).

That same year, Hedlund moved away from his "farmboy-thrust-into-the- big-city" image with the gritty "Death Sentence" (2007) and most importantly, made a fanboy splash as the lead in the highly-anticipated sci-fi sequel, "Tron: Legacy" (2010), garnering the greatest buzz in his career up until that time and virtually securing viable leading man status for years to come.

Garret John Hedlund was born in Roseau, MN on Sept. 3, 1984 to parents Robert Martin Hedlund and Kristine Anne Yanish. The youngest of three siblings, Hedlund spent his early years isolated on a farm so remote the family only received one radio signal to a country music station. It was in this bubble that he developed a lifelong love of the outdoors and hunting.

After his parents divorced, Hedlund headed to Arizona with his mother, where he enrolled in Phoenix's Horizon High School and joined in a host of athletic activities including wrestling, football, track and even ice skating. In ninth grade, Hedlund began studying acting and began working as a model for Teen magazine and for LL Bean catalogs.

Hedlund eventually graduated from school an entire semester early so he could move to Los Angeles and begin his quest for stardom. Within one month of arrival - in a circumstance rarely witnessed in the history of the industry - Hedlund nabbed a part in a mega-budget action film, starring Brad Pitt, no less.

Based on Homer's The Iliad, "Troy" (2004) was Wolfgang Petersen's take on one of Greek mythology's most celebrated heroes, and featured Hedlund as Patroclus - cousin to Brad Pitt's Achilles. While the film was a bit of a critical and box office letdown domestically, the action war movie did even bigger international business and provided Hedlund with a Teen Choice Award nomination as Breakout Movie Star - Male.

In the Peter Berg directed "Friday Night Lights" (2004), based on the novel by H. G. Bissinger, Hedlund was cast opposite Billy Bob Thornton in the story of the 1988 Permian High School Panthers football team and their pursuit of the state championship. The critically applauded movie featured the actor as the fullback son of an abusive father played by Tim McGraw, who was, ironically, one of Hedlund's favorite musical artists he grew up listening to on that single radio station of his youth.

With much critical praise for his performance in the inspirational football drama, Hedlund next headed to the dark and gritty world of "Four Brothers" (2005) - based on the Western, "The Sons of Katie Elder" (1965) - as Mark Wahlberg's younger brother who joins in the redemptive search for their mother's killer.

Hedlund met a grim end in the film, but the movie's box office and favorable reviews continued to kick his career into higher gear. In his next effort "Eragon" (2006), the actor played Murtagh, the friend and rescuer of the protagonist. Though the dragon-riding fantasy film was slayed by the critics, the movie did respectable worldwide business and Hedlund escaped unscathed.

Much of the same could be said of the universally panned comedy-drama, "Georgia Rule" (2007), which cast Hedlund in a supporting role as a Mormon love interest to Lindsay Lohan. The only noise the harmless movie made mainly centered on Lohan's increasingly troubling off-screen behavior.

In his next project, "Death Sentence" (2007), Hedlund did a roundabout with his image by becoming a vicious, tattooed, shaved-head gang leader, engaged in a grisly back and forth vendetta with Kevin Bacon, as the victim-turned-vigilante.

After a three-year absence from film, Hedlund returned in a big way in 2010 with two huge projects. In the dramatic musical tale "Country Strong" (2010), Hedlund starred as an up-and-coming country songwriter who becomes involved with an alcoholic singer (Gwyneth Paltrow) attempting to make her comeback.

In the highly anticipated sequel to the classic sci-fi adventure, "Tron" (1982) - which originally starred Jeff Bridges as a video game developer who becomes trapped in his own cyber world - Hedlund toplined "Tron Legacy" (2010) over 25 years later. In this version, Hedlund stars as Bridges' son, Sam Flynn, who, while going in search of his missing father, becomes transported into the same digital world.

From there, he was the wild, carefree Dean Moriarty to Sam Riley's Sal Paradise in the long-awaited adaptation of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" (2012). Directed by Walter Salles and co-starring Kristen Stewart as Sal's flame Marylou, the novel was the subject of a film adaptation as far back as 1957, when Kerouac himself suggested Marlon Brando play Moriarty, while Francis Ford Coppola purchased the rights in 1979 and spent the ensuing decades struggling with various writers to produce a viable script.

Eventually, the film was released in 2012 to mixed reviews, though Hedlund's performance was singled out by critics and generated end-of-the-year awards buzz. Hedlund's next major role had a similar Beat Generation vibe: he appeared in a memorable segment of Joel and Ethan Coen's "Inside Llewyn Davis" (2013) as Johnny Five, the laconic, hipster-cool driver and right-hand-man for imperious jazz musician Roland Turner (John Goodman).