Actor / Director Profile

Tall, handsome American film and television star John Krasinski is probably best known for his role as sardonic nice guy "Jim Halpert" on NBC's popular TV series, "The Office" (2005), for which he won a 2007 and 2008 Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a comedy series.Born John Burke Krasinski on October 20, 1979, in Newton, Massachussetts, USA to a family of Polish-American heritage, he is the youngest of three brothers. His father, Ronald, is an internist and his mother, Mary Claire, is a nurse.His first stage experience was starring in a satirical high school play, written and cast by B.J. Novak. Also good at sports, he played on the same Little League baseball team as B.J. Novak, now a writer and co-star on "The Office" (2005). After graduating from Newton South High School in 1997, Krasinski planned to be an English major and deferred his first semester of college to teach English in Costa Rica. He attended Brown University, graduating in 2001, as a playwright with honors, then studied at the Eugene O'Neill National Theatre Institute in Waterford,Connecticut.During the summer of 2000, he worked as a script intern on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" (1993). Krasinski made his big screen debut in 2002, then played several small roles like "Ben" in Kinsey (2004), and "Bob Flynn" in Duane Hopwood (2005). He appeared as "Corporal Harrigan" in Jarhead (2005), by director Sam Mendes, then played a supporting role as "Ben" in The Holiday (2006), a romantic comedy by director Nancy Meyers. He is billed as the voice of "Lancelot" in Shrek the Third (2007). Krasinski co-starred opposite Robin Williams and Mandy Moore in the romantic comedy License to Wed (2007), as well as with George Clooney and Renée Zellweger in the football screwball comedy, Leatherheads (2008). He is also director and writer of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (2009), a big screen adaptation of the eponymous collection of short stories by David Foster Wallace.Krasinski was featured in People Magazine's Sexiest Men Alive issue of 2006. He claims Los Angeles as his current home but travels to New York City and his hometown of Newton, MA, frequently.