Actor / Director Profile

Christopher James Stapleton was born on February 18, 1971 in Sherman, Illinois, a small rural town outside Springfield. Perhaps his first interest in acting came when his parents, Jim and Phyllis, purchased a camcorder. It wasn't long before Chris and his younger twin brothers, Tony and Brian, began to shoot their own short movies. Chris further dabbled with performing at Griffin High School, where he was convinced by a teacher to audition for the theater club's latest production. He won the role and went on to play the lead in the musical, "Carousel", the following year. But it wasn't until college that Chris seriously considered a career in the entertainment business. In the fall of 1989, Stapleton received a full football scholarship to the University of Michigan. After starting as the team's punter his freshman year, he sustained a foot injury in training camp and was sidelined for the season. Frustrated, Chris focused his energy on acting. Throughout his college theater experience he was the lead in several productions including, "The Time of Your Life", "As You Like It", "Andromache" and the American classic, "Our Town". In 1993, he was named "Performer of the Year" by the Michigan Daily. Chris graduated from Michigan in '93 with a degree in Communications. Six months later, he packed up everything and road tripped to Hollywood. Shortly thereafter, he landed a guest spot on the popular soap, "The Young and the Restless". Since then he has appeared with Brooke Shields on "Suddenly Susan", Dixie Carter on "Family Law" and Martin Lawrence in Blue Streak (1999). Some of his other credits include, "The X-Files" "JAG", "Providence" and the independent feature films, Aurora (1998), _Black Friday (2000)_ and Ultimate Target (2000) the latter with Michael Madsen, star of such movies as "Reservoir Dogs" and "Donnie Brasco." Currently, Chris can be seen in his recurring role of "Dan" on the new UPN show, "As If". He also finished principal photography on two projects this past summer, the first being a short entitled, "The Death of Batman", in which he dons the famous cape and cowl. The other is a gritty independent drama called "American Dream", where he plays the polar opposite of a hero, an intense drug enforcer named "Shamus".