Eric Stoltz

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Eric Stoltz

Born	September 30, 1961 Santa Barbara, California

Eric Stoltz (born September 30, 1961) is an American actor widely considered one of the most prominent and diverse performers in independent film. He has starred movies such as Mask, Some Kind of Wonderful, Memphis Belle, Rob Roy, Little Women, The Waterdance, Pulp Fiction, Kicking and Screaming, and The House of Mirth.

He is known primarily for playing either sensitive misfits (Mask, Kicking and Screaming, The Waterdance) or sociopathic criminals with a cowardly or nice side (Pulp Fiction, Killing Zoe). In Pulp Fiction, he played Lance, who reluctantly helped Vincent Vega (John Travolta) with Marsellus Wallace's wife Mia (Uma Thurman), who was about to die unless she received a shot of adrenaline to the heart.

Originally cast as Marty McFly in Back to the Future (1985), he was replaced after filming had started, when Michael J. Fox (the director's first choice for the role) agreed to divide time between the movie and his television sitcom Family Ties. The director, Robert Zemeckis, has said that while Stoltz was giving an admirable performance, it lacked a certain humorous feel that Zemeckis was looking for. Stoltz thus lost the role to Fox. None of Stoltz' footage has been released, although allegedly, some far shots and back shots in the start of the movie feature Stoltz. Still photographs of his performance can be see on the BTTF Trilogy DVD.

On television, he has played Helen Hunt's ex-boyfriend on Mad About You, Debra Messing's boyfriend on Will and Grace, and the English teacher-poet August Dimitri in ABC's Once and Again.

He produced the films Bodies, Rest & Motion in 1993, Sleep with Me in 1994, and Mr. Jealousy in 1997. He was also a production assistant on Say Anything and Singles.

More recently, he has starred in The Butterfly Effect with Ashton Kutcher, and The Triangle with Sam Neill. He also guest-starred in a 2003 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as well as the 2005 season finale of the NBC sitcom Will & Grace.

Stoltz started directing in 2002 with an episode of Once and Again. The following year he was nominated for a daytime Emmy for his direction of the cable movie My Horrible Year. He has also directed a short film entitled The Bulls, as well as the highest rated episode of Law & Order in 2005, entitled Tombstone. (This was the episode where Detective Green (Jesse L. Martin) was shot and hospitalized.)

Trained in the theatre, Stoltz has also appeared on Broadway and off-Broadway, in such diverse plays as Three Sisters, The Importance of Being Earnest, Arms and the Man, The Glass Menagerie, Two Shakespearean Actors, Sly Fox, and Our Town, He was nominated for a Tony Award for the latter performance.

He has contributed essays to the books City Secrets -- New York as well as Life Interrupted by Spalding Gray, and appears on the children's CD Philadelphia Chickens.

On a personal note, he lived with Bridget Fonda from 1990-1998, and with actress Jennifer Jason Leigh from 1985-1989. Stoltz is married to Bernadette Moley, a singer-songwriter. They have one child, born in 2006.

Stoltz is currently attached to star in writer/producer Clint Morris's horror satire, "Howl", set to film in 2007.