Steven Strait

Steven Strait achieved early success as one of young Hollywood's promising fresh faces, although sustained growth as an actor proved more elusive than many had envisioned. After a stint modeling for clothing lines like Hollister and studying acting at the revered Stella Adler Conservancy, the then high school graduate made his feature film debut as Warren Peace, the brooding son of a super-villain in the Disney action-comedy "Sky High" (2005). Buoyed by the movie's success, the handsome young actor was soon pegged as an up-and-coming leading man, landing several lead roles in quick succession.

Despite the best of intentions, Strait's turns as an aspiring rock star in "Undiscovered" (2005), a teenage warlock in "The Covenant" (2006), and as a prehistoric tribal leader in the big-budget Roland Emmerich flop "10,000 B.C." (2008) all failed to establish him as a bankable star. A return to supporting roles, however, provided Strait with better quality of work, in such projects as the indie comedy-drama "City Island" (2009) and the Miami-set 1950s crime-drama series "Magic City" (Starz, 2012-13). Still in the nascent stages of his young career, Strait had learned a valuable lesson about placing the merits of the material above the size of the role.

A native New Yorker, Strait was born on March 23, 1986, growing up in Manhattan's West Village. At P.S. Three, which he attended up until the sixth grade, he had an early interest in sports - first in basketball, then later in boxing and karate. A huge influence, Strait's mother was a highly belted practitioner of karate. Just before his teens, he began focusing on acting, ensconced in classes at the Village Community School, where he was nudged into acting in a musical. That performance nabbed him both a modeling manager and a few commercial gigs, all by the age of 13.

Strait went on to attend Manhattan's Xavier High School, where he decided to further continue his acting, music and modeling, with the modeling detour becoming the catalyst. Early in his teens, a chance meeting with the head of Boss Models, John Bobin, led to his recruitment as a model for the agency, with Strait appearing in photo campaigns for illustrious clothiers such as Harlequin and Hollister.

In 2000, Strait, age 14, began studying acting at the prestigious Stella Adler Conservatory. His training also extended to training at Black Nexxus. Strait first appeared on network television in the New York-based series "Third Watch" (NBC, 1999-2005), playing Bobby Cannavale's character Bobby Caffey as a teenager on a February 2001 episode. By early 2003, Strait had been wooed into the fold as a client for one of Hollywood's elite talent agencies, International Creative Management. After signing, he made the jump to the west coast, heading to Los Angeles after graduating from Xavier High in 2004.

It was not long before Strait, eager to put his years of acting training to use, was sent out for film auditions. He was very quickly cast in an ambitious Disney family comedy about teen superheroes called "Sky High" (2005). Released in July 2005, the young actor could be seen heating up the screen as Warren Peace, a superhero with the ability to manipulate flames. Just after "Sky High" began filming, Strait was tapped for his second film project, the more-low key of the two efforts, "Undiscovered" (2005), which chronicled the lives of an interconnected group of struggling actors and musicians.

As he had done with "Sky High," Strait sported a mane of long hair for his role as Luke Falcon, a budding singer-songwriter who moves from New York to Los Angeles in search of stardom.

While "Sky High" was a small hit with moviegoers, "Undiscovered" sank at the box office amidst mostly unenthusiastic reviews. Not a total loss, Strait landed an impressive seven songs on the soundtrack's 15-track release. Though critics did not buy into performance of Falcon as a singer-in-the-making, he was indeed a real life rocker. Lakeshore Records, the label who put out the movie's soundtrack, quickly signed Straight and his band, Tribe. Despite the musical detour, Strait continued with his acting career, landing a role in director Renny Harlin's supernatural thriller, "The Covenant" (2006), in which he starred as Caleb Danvers, one of four friends and descendents of New England witches who use their warlock powers to compete for the love of a classmate.

Following his turn working with Harlin, Strait was hired by another veteran of the blockbuster genre, director Roland Emmerich, for the movie "10,000 B.C." Strait took on his biggest film challenge to date in the lead role of D'Leh, a prehistoric mammoth hunter forced onto a continent-crossing trek to save his tribe from complete extinction. Unfortunately, Strait's hoped for breakthrough film met with a mixture of derision, scorn and indifference from audiences, offering the young actor little in the way of career advancement. Less maligned was his small role in the Iraq wartime drama "Stop Loss" (2008), starring Ryan Phillippe, Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as young soldiers struggling to reclaim their lives as civilians.

After appearing as Andy Garcia's illegitimate son in the dysfunctional family-drama "City Island" (2009), Strait scored a regular cast role on the cable series "Magic City" (Starz, 2012-13). On the period drama, Strait played Stevie Evans, the charming "bad boy" son of Ike Evans (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), owner of the ritzy Miramar Playa Resort, where glamour, sex, power and crime all converge on the shores of Miami in the late-1950s.