Adam Driver

He was assigned to Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines as an 81mm mortar man.

He served for two years and eight months before fracturing his sternum while mountain biking.

He was medically discharged with the rank of Lance Corporal.

Subsequently, Driver attended the University of Indianapolis for a year before auditioning again for Juilliard, this time succeeding.

He got the news he was accepted while at work at the Target Distribution Center in Indianapolis.

Driver has said that his classmates saw him as an intimidating and volatile figure, and he struggled to fit into a lifestyle so different from the Marines.

Adam Douglas Driver (born November 19, 1983) is an American actor.

Recognized for his collaborations with auteur filmmakers, he is the recipient of various accolades, including nominations for two Academy Awards, four Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award.

Driver was born on November 19, 1983, in San Diego, California, the son of Nancy Wright (née Needham), a paralegal, and Joe Douglas Driver.

Director Terry Gilliam has claimed that Driver has Native American ancestry, though Driver has no known Native American ancestors.

His father's family is from Arkansas, and his mother's family is from Indiana.

His stepfather, Rodney G. Wright, is a minister at a Baptist church.

Driver has described his teenage self as a "misfit"; he told M Magazine that he climbed radio towers, set objects on fire, and co-founded a fight club with friends, inspired by the 1999 film Fight Club.

Throughout high school, he was active in choir and theater, participating in school productions of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Into the Woods, and Guys and Dolls.

He applied to The Juilliard School for drama knowing that they would not look at his grades from high school, but was not accepted.

After high school, he worked as a door-to-door salesman selling Kirby vacuum cleaners and as a telemarketer for a basement waterproofing company and Ben Franklin Construction.

When Driver was eighteen he attempted to start his acting career in Los Angeles, leaving Indiana by car and breaking down in Amarillo, Texas.

He spent his money repairing his car only to make it to Santa Monica where he lived in a hostel for 48 hours and was scammed by a real estate agent he paid to find him an apartment.

He realized he did not have enough money to live, returning to Indiana after only a week away from home.

Shortly after the September 11 attacks, Driver enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.

When Driver was seven years old, he moved with his older sister and mother to his mother's hometown Mishawaka, Indiana, where he graduated from Mishawaka High School in 2001.

Driver was raised Baptist, and sang in the choir at church.

He was a member of the Drama Division's Group 38 from 2005 to 2009, where he met his future wife, Joanne Tucker.

He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2009.

After graduating from Juilliard, Driver moved to New York City, appearing in both Broadway and off-Broadway productions.

Like many aspiring actors, he occasionally worked as a busboy and waiter.

Driver appeared in several television shows and short films.

He played a repentant witness and reluctant accomplice to an unsolved assault in the final episode of the television series The Unusuals.

He made his film debut in Clint Eastwood's biographical film J. Edgar.

Driver made his Broadway debut in Mrs. Warren's Profession (2010) and subsequently appeared in Man and Boy (2011).

He rose to prominence with a supporting role in the HBO series Girls (2012–2017), for which he received three consecutive Primetime Emmy nominations.

He began his film career in supporting roles in Lincoln (2012), Frances Ha (2012) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013).

He won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for a leading role in Hungry Hearts (2014).

Driver gained wider recognition for playing Kylo Ren in the Star Wars sequel trilogy (2015–2019).

He played a poet in Paterson (2016), and had supporting roles in the religious epic Silence (2016) and the heist comedy Logan Lucky (2017).

He garnered consecutive Academy Award nominations: Best Supporting Actor for BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Best Actor for Marriage Story (2019).

He has since starred in Ridley Scott's 2021 period films The Last Duel and House of Gucci, and played Enzo Ferrari in Michael Mann’s biopic Ferrari (2023).

Driver is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps.

He is also the founder of Arts in the Armed Forces, a non-profit that provides free arts programming to American active-duty service members, veterans, military support staff, and their families worldwide.

In 2019, he returned to the stage in the Broadway revival of Burn This, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.