The Patriot Cast: Chris Cooper

Bio
Chris Cooper was born in Kansas City, Missouri in July 1952. He served in the Coast Guard Reserves and graduated from the University of Missouri. He made his stage debut in 1983 and his film debut in Matewan in 1987. He married screenwriter Marianne Leone in 1983 and they have a son, Jesse.

Cooper has built a solid career as a character and supporting actor, utilizing his rugged look for various 'earthy' roles. His Western roles include the television miniseries Lonesome Dove and its sequel, as well as Thousand Pieces of Gold. In 1996, he played lawmen in both the independent film Lone Star, a role that earned him an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Actor and in John Grisham's A Time to Kill.

Cooper played Uncle Joe in the update of Great Expectations and Robert Redford's brother in The Horse Whisperer. His role as a career military man whose repressed emotions torment him in American Beauty earned him a 2000 Screen Actor Guild nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He again played a soldier in The Patriot, a police officer in Jim Carrey's Me, Myself & Irene.

In 2002, Cooper appeared in Interstate 60 and as intelligence officer after Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity. He also appeared in Adaptation which starred Nicolas Cage, which garnered him Academy Award, BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild nominations as well as a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor.

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