Adrian Pasdar

Biography

* Real Name : Adrian K. Pasdar
* Born : April 30, 1965

Family

* Father: HOMAYOON PASDAR

Born in Tehran, Iran...He is a cardiothoracic surgeon at a hospital in Philadelphia, PA's western surburbs.

* Mother: ROSEMARIE (SBRESNY)

Born in Konigsberg, Germany Webmaster's Note: Konigsberg, Prussia is current day Kaliningrad, Russia..She is a travel agent/writer living in Paris. Webmaster's Note: She has been living in the states since 1991 running her own travel agency specializing in French tours (Adrian's parents were divorced when he was 8 years old.)

* Sister: ANAMARIE PASDAR

Anamarie is eight years younger than Adrian. Graduate of Baldwin School (Bryn Mawr, PA, a prestigious Main Line girls' school.) She lives in New York City. At 22 years old she was an artistic director/associate producer with New York's SoHo Rep Theater Company. Adrian has said of her, "I had to fight hard for everything. She's a genius. When I was 22, I couldn't even find my socks!"

Born in Pittsfield, MA, Adrian moved to 39th and Powelton in Philadelphia, PA at age 2. (This is near the Drexel University area.) At age 8 he moved 15 miles west to Philadelphia's suburbs. He lived at 18 Dundee Mews, Broomall (this area has a Media post office address.)

At Marple Newtown High School (graduated 1983), Adrian was active in football, where he played defensive back at 5'11", 206 lbs, track, soccer, and of course, acting. His senior year he did BAREFOOT IN THE PARK. (Even then his talent was striking!) Although generally a good student, he cut classes, got caught smoking cigarettes, and at 15 was arrested for "borrowing" a neighbor's car, which was smashed and totaled. (The charges were dropped when he paid for the car by working various jobs.) Adrian was straightened out by his father, whom he idolizes, and his football coach, who "taught me discipline and a sense of structure in life. He helped me to be focused and responsive about daily activities. Football is one of the main things I can look back on with pride.

After high school graduation Adrian won a football scholarship to the University of Central Florida. After the first football game, he flipped his jeep on a rain-slickened highway one night on the way to Miami. He took out the windshield with his face. Legs badly mangled, the medics told Pasdar that he would walk with a pronounced limp- that is, if he were to walk again at all. Between intensive physical therapy and rehabilitation sessions, he finished out his freshman year in a wheelchair. His athletic career over, the English major turned to campus stage productions and rediscovered the joys of acting and writing that had been a major part of his childhood. (Adrian had written plays that childhood friends played in) He left school at the end of his freshman year because he could no longer play football. "I regret missing school. The only education I've had is through films I have done. It's half the reason that I do what I do, what I can learn from the places and the people."

Coming back home, Adrian got an internship at a nearby theater group, PEOPLE'S LIGHT AND THEATER COMPANY in Malvern, PA. He was a "tech resident," constructing sets and working on sound and lighting. One day while building a set, he cut off the end of his thumb. Adrian took the worker's compensation payments and went to New York to study at the famed Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. A few months later, at the age of 19, Adrian had his first acting part in TOP GUN. A steady girlfriend for two years was Cecilia Peck, actor Gregory Peck's daughter and co-star in Adrian's TORN APART. Although living in Los Angeles, while doing a play in Pennsylvania in 1989, Adrian mentioned how much he missed the changing color of the trees and snow.

After several movies he met German director Wim Wenders at the Cannes Film Festival. "Inspired by Wenders' WING OF DESIRE, Pasdar packed up his belongings and spent a year commuting between Berlin and Paris 'hanging out late at cafes and getting up early to write and cook.'" (Steven Spielberg optioned the screenplay/novel that Adrian wrote, however, nothing was ever made from it.) Refreshed, he headed straight to Los Angeles to do another half-dozen small films. He had made plenty of money but hated the Hollywood lifestyle. "I had gotten so out of touch with reality that one day in 1992," Pasdar said "I just sold my house at a $200,000.00 loss, moved back East, and put my money into T-bills. I spent the next year working behind the counter and running the cash register for room and board at Vandam Diner, a little lower east Manhattan diner, owned by a friend's father." Adrian quit his job when PROFIT came along. His hobbies include skydiving, riding a Harley, playing chess, and sporting a Bobcat head tattoo on his upper right arm. (His film company is named Bobcat Films.)

Adrian wrote a short film called BEYOND BELIEF. It was also Adrian's directing debut. Declared "a dazzling tone-poem, as original and accomplished as short-film making gets," it debuted at East Hamptons Film Festival in October 1995. BEYOND BELIEF received a Finalist Award at the Houston Film Festical in June 1996. It has been shown on Robert Redford's Indepedant Film Network. BEYOND BELIEF is the "story of a lost soul visited by his guardian angel on the last day of his life."

Currently, Adrian is busy in Austin, Texas directing and co-producing CEMENT. As his feature film directorial debut, Adrian chose Justin Mongo's "crisply written thriller."

Besides the award for BEYOND BELIEF, Adrian was nominated for 1996's Petcabus Award for "Best Actor in a Drama series" for "Profit."

Adrian has done stage plays including "The Glass Menagerie." (Adrian says this "has always been on of my favorites.") He has also done some off-Broadway work.