Paul Schneider (actor)
Encyclopedia
Paul Andrew Schneider is an American film actor.
. He graduated from the North Carolina School of Arts
. He made his cinematic debut in 2000 in the independent film George Washington
, directed by David Gordon Green
, and later starred in All the Real Girls
.
As research for his role as Jesse Baylor in Elizabethtown
, director Cameron Crowe
suggested that Schneider tour with the band My Morning Jacket
for five days beginning June 1, 2004. So he accompanied them to concerts held in such locations as Irving Plaza
, the Webster Theater
, the Theater of the Living Arts
, and Stone Pony Landing.
Following Elizabethtown
, Schneider was given more supporting roles in The Family Stone
and Live Free or Die
. In 2007, Schneider, again as a supporting actor, portrayed Gus Lindstrom
in Lars and the Real Girl
and Dick Liddil
in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
.
He was named as one of the "Ten Actors to Watch" by Variety
in 2007.
In 2008, he made his directorial debut with the independent film Pretty Bird
.
Also in 2008, Schneider played the 9th President, William Henry Harrison, in a short parody miniseries directed by Derek Waters called Drunk History Vol. 4.
In 2009 Schneider appeared as Charles Armitage Brown
in the Keats film Bright Star
, directed by Jane Campion
, for which he won the Best Supporting Actor Award from the National Society of Film Critics
. The award was shared with Christoph Waltz
for Inglourious Basterds.
Schneider portrayed Courtney Farlander in Away We Go
alongside John Krasinski
and Maya Rudolph
, directed by Sam Mendes
.
He starred in the NBC
series Parks and Recreation
as Mark Brendanawicz
. Despite the show being renewed, his character did not return for the third season.
.
After launching his official website, Schneider posted his reasons for doing so on December 10, 2004:
In response to someone's post to the message boards on his website, on December 31, 2005, Schneider wrote:
On his website, he lists his 2006 New Year's Resolutions as "need[ing] to finish a screenplay, play[ing] drums more often and find[ing] time to again to volunteer on a regular basis."
As a friend of former Battles
band member Tyondai Braxton
, Schneider voluntarily interviewed the solo musician after listening to his first solo release,"History That Has No Effect
." Schneider listened and, subsequently, transcribed his extensive interview on his website.
Early life and career
Schneider was born and raised in Asheville, North CarolinaAsheville, North Carolina
Asheville is a city in and the county seat of Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. It is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the 11th largest city in North Carolina. The City is home to the United States National Climatic Data Center , which is the world's largest active...
. He graduated from the North Carolina School of Arts
University of North Carolina School of the Arts
The University of North Carolina School of the Arts , formerly the North Carolina School of the Arts, is a public coeducational arts conservatory in Winston-Salem, North Carolina that grants high school, undergraduate and graduate degrees. It is one of the seventeen constituent campuses of the...
. He made his cinematic debut in 2000 in the independent film George Washington
George Washington (film)
George Washington is a 2000 American drama film about a group of children in a depressed small town in North Carolina. The children band together to cover up a tragic mistake. The film is written and directed by David Gordon Green.-Plot:...
, directed by David Gordon Green
David Gordon Green
David Gordon Green is an American filmmaker. He has directed dramas such as George Washington, All the Real Girls, and Snow Angels, as well as the thriller Undertow, all of which he wrote or co-wrote...
, and later starred in All the Real Girls
All the Real Girls
All the Real Girls is a 2003 romantic drama film written and directed by David Gordon Green. The film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2003. It stars Paul Schneider, Zooey Deschanel, Shea Whigham, Danny R. McBride, Patricia Clarkson, Maurice Compte and Benjamin Mouton...
.
As research for his role as Jesse Baylor in Elizabethtown
Elizabethtown (film)
Elizabethtown is a 2005 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Cameron Crowe starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst. Alec Baldwin has a small role as a CEO of an athletic shoe company and Susan Sarandon appears as a grieving widow...
, director Cameron Crowe
Cameron Crowe
Cameron Bruce Crowe is an American screenwriter and film director. Before moving into the film industry, Crowe was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine, for which he still frequently writes....
suggested that Schneider tour with the band My Morning Jacket
My Morning Jacket
My Morning Jacket is an American rock band from Louisville, Kentucky.The band consists of Jim James , Tom 'Two-Tone Tommy' Blankenship , Patrick Hallahan , Carl Broemel , and Bo Koster .-History:My Morning Jacket was...
for five days beginning June 1, 2004. So he accompanied them to concerts held in such locations as Irving Plaza
Irving Plaza
Irving Plaza is a 1,200-person ballroom-style music venue at 17 Irving Place and East 15th Street in the Union Square neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City...
, the Webster Theater
Webster Theater
The Webster Theater is a music venue in the South end of Hartford, Connecticut. The Webster Underground is an attached smaller venue, which usually acts as a second stage during concerts on the main stage.-History:...
, the Theater of the Living Arts
Theater of the Living Arts
The TLA, also known as The Fillmore at the Theatre of Living Arts or Theater of Living Arts, is a music venue located at 334 South Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is a venue converted from an old single-screen movie theater. It has a capacity of 1000 and is used for smaller concerts...
, and Stone Pony Landing.
Following Elizabethtown
Elizabethtown (film)
Elizabethtown is a 2005 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Cameron Crowe starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst. Alec Baldwin has a small role as a CEO of an athletic shoe company and Susan Sarandon appears as a grieving widow...
, Schneider was given more supporting roles in The Family Stone
The Family Stone
The Family Stone is a 2005 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Thomas Bezucha. Produced by Michael London and distributed by 20th Century Fox, it stars an ensemble cast, including Diane Keaton, Craig T. Nelson, Dermot Mulroney, Sarah Jessica Parker, Luke Wilson, Claire Danes, Rachel...
and Live Free or Die
Live Free or Die (film)
Live Free or Die is a 2006 American comedy film starring Aaron Stanford, Paul Schneider, Zooey Deschanel, Michael Rapaport, Judah Friedlander, Kevin Dunn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach...
. In 2007, Schneider, again as a supporting actor, portrayed Gus Lindstrom
Lars and the Real Girl
Lars and the Real Girl is a 2007 American-Canadian comedy-drama film written by Nancy Oliver and directed by Craig Gillespie. It stars Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Kelli Garner and Patricia Clarkson...
in Lars and the Real Girl
Lars and the Real Girl
Lars and the Real Girl is a 2007 American-Canadian comedy-drama film written by Nancy Oliver and directed by Craig Gillespie. It stars Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Kelli Garner and Patricia Clarkson...
and Dick Liddil
Dick Liddil
James Andrew "Dick" Liddil was an American outlaw who was one of the last surviving members of the James-Younger Gang...
in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a 2007 American Western drama film. The film is directed by Andrew Dominik, with Brad Pitt portraying Jesse James and Casey Affleck as his killer, Robert Ford.Filming took place in rural Alberta and Winnipeg, Manitoba...
.
He was named as one of the "Ten Actors to Watch" by Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
in 2007.
In 2008, he made his directorial debut with the independent film Pretty Bird
Pretty Bird
Pretty Bird is a 2008 American film. It competed in the Dramatic Competition at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.-Plot:A sweet-natured guy enlists his pals to help him create and market his idea for a rocket-powered belt...
.
Also in 2008, Schneider played the 9th President, William Henry Harrison, in a short parody miniseries directed by Derek Waters called Drunk History Vol. 4.
In 2009 Schneider appeared as Charles Armitage Brown
Charles Armitage Brown
Charles Armitage Brown was born in Lambeth on 14 April 1787.He was a very close friend of the poet John Keats, as well as being a friend of artist Joseph Severn, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, Walter Savage Landor and Edward John Trelawny...
in the Keats film Bright Star
Bright Star (film)
Bright Star is a 2009 film based on the last three years of the life of poet John Keats and his romantic relationship with Fanny Brawne. It stars Ben Whishaw as Keats and Abbie Cornish as Fanny...
, directed by Jane Campion
Jane Campion
Jane Campion is a filmmaker and screenwriter. She is one of the most internationally successful New Zealand directors, although most of her work has been made in or financed by other countries, principally Australia – where she now lives – and the United States...
, for which he won the Best Supporting Actor Award from the National Society of Film Critics
National Society of Film Critics
The National Society of Film Critics is an American film critic organization. As of December 2007 the NSFC had approximately 60 members who wrote for a variety of weekly and daily newspapers.-History:...
. The award was shared with Christoph Waltz
Christoph Waltz
Christoph Waltz is an Austrian-German actor. He received international acclaim for his portrayal of SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa in the 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, for which he won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and the BAFTA, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award and...
for Inglourious Basterds.
Schneider portrayed Courtney Farlander in Away We Go
Away We Go (film)
Away We Go is a 2009 comedy-drama directed by Academy Award-winning director Sam Mendes and written by the husband-and-wife team of Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida...
alongside John Krasinski
John Krasinski
John Burke Krasinski is an American actor, film director, and writer. He is most widely known for playing Jim Halpert on the NBC sitcom The Office...
and Maya Rudolph
Maya Rudolph
Maya Khabira Rudolph is an American actress, comedienne and singer known for her comedic roles as a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 2000 to 2007, and for appearing in films such as Away We Go, Bridesmaids, Grown Ups, A Prairie Home Companion and MacGruber...
, directed by Sam Mendes
Sam Mendes
Samuel Alexander "Sam" Mendes, CBE is an English stage and film director. He is best known for his Academy Award-winning work on his debut film American Beauty and his dark re-inventions of the stage musicals Cabaret , Oliver! , Company and Gypsy . He's currently working on the 23rd James Bond...
.
He starred in the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
series Parks and Recreation
Parks and Recreation
Parks and Recreation is an American comedy television series on NBC that focuses on Leslie Knope , a mid-level bureaucrat in the parks department of Pawnee, a fictional town in Indiana. Created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, the series debuted on April 9, 2009; it has run for three seasons and...
as Mark Brendanawicz
Mark Brendanawicz
Mark Brendanawicz is a fictional character in the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation. He is the city planner for Pawnee, Indiana, one of Ann Perkins's ex-boyfriends, and Leslie Knope's colleague. He is portrayed by Paul Schneider...
. Despite the show being renewed, his character did not return for the third season.
Personal life
Schneider currently resides in Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
.
After launching his official website, Schneider posted his reasons for doing so on December 10, 2004:
[A]fter perusing the self-aggrandizing and ridiculously pompous sites of most young actors, vomiting accomplishments and sugarcoated biographies . . . I decided that self-deprecation was the only route for me. Keep in mind I don’t think many actors have anything to do, whatsoever, with the websites that bear their names. But I think that’s lazy and shortsighted and would feel sick seeing somebody co-opt my name to further any cause not overseen by myself. I wanted, in my amateurish way, to build a site that satirized those websites, to fight the trivial with trivia, to combat fluff with . . . even fluffier . . . stuff.
In response to someone's post to the message boards on his website, on December 31, 2005, Schneider wrote:
There are great misperceptions about being an actor. One is about money. If anyone assumed I wasn’t constantly worried about making rent, buried in debt, scared that I may never work again and terrified of failure then they would be wrong . . . because it’s that, every day. Movie or no movie, I’m still struggling to pay the bills like everyone else. I write this website from a coffee shop that I ride my bike to.
On his website, he lists his 2006 New Year's Resolutions as "need[ing] to finish a screenplay, play[ing] drums more often and find[ing] time to again to volunteer on a regular basis."
As a friend of former Battles
Battles (band)
Battles is an American experimental rock group, founded in 2002 in New York City, comprising guitarists Ian Williams and Dave Konopka , and drummer John Stanier .-Biography:...
band member Tyondai Braxton
Tyondai Braxton
Tyondai Braxton is an American composer and performer, largely known as the former guitarist/singer of Battles, and as a prominently featured artist on record label Warp Records...
, Schneider voluntarily interviewed the solo musician after listening to his first solo release,"History That Has No Effect
Tyondai Braxton
Tyondai Braxton is an American composer and performer, largely known as the former guitarist/singer of Battles, and as a prominently featured artist on record label Warp Records...
." Schneider listened and, subsequently, transcribed his extensive interview on his website.
Filmography
| Film | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Film | Role | Other notes |
| 2000 | George Washington George Washington (film) George Washington is a 2000 American drama film about a group of children in a depressed small town in North Carolina. The children band together to cover up a tragic mistake. The film is written and directed by David Gordon Green.-Plot:... |
Rico Rice | |
| 2003 | All the Real Girls All the Real Girls All the Real Girls is a 2003 romantic drama film written and directed by David Gordon Green. The film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2003. It stars Paul Schneider, Zooey Deschanel, Shea Whigham, Danny R. McBride, Patricia Clarkson, Maurice Compte and Benjamin Mouton... |
Paul | Also Writer Nominated — Chlotrudis Award for Best Original Screenplay Chlotrudis Award for Best Original Screenplay The Chlotrudis Award for Best Adapted Screenplay is an award given by the Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film to the writer or writers of the winning screenplay that is voted by participating members... |
| 2003 | Crude | Gabe | |
| 2005 | Elizabethtown Elizabethtown (film) Elizabethtown is a 2005 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Cameron Crowe starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst. Alec Baldwin has a small role as a CEO of an athletic shoe company and Susan Sarandon appears as a grieving widow... |
Jesse Baylor | |
| The Family Stone The Family Stone The Family Stone is a 2005 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Thomas Bezucha. Produced by Michael London and distributed by 20th Century Fox, it stars an ensemble cast, including Diane Keaton, Craig T. Nelson, Dermot Mulroney, Sarah Jessica Parker, Luke Wilson, Claire Danes, Rachel... |
Brad Stevenson | ||
| 2006 | Live Free or Die Live Free or Die (film) Live Free or Die is a 2006 American comedy film starring Aaron Stanford, Paul Schneider, Zooey Deschanel, Michael Rapaport, Judah Friedlander, Kevin Dunn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach... |
Jeff Lagrand | |
| 2007 | The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a 2007 American Western drama film. The film is directed by Andrew Dominik, with Brad Pitt portraying Jesse James and Casey Affleck as his killer, Robert Ford.Filming took place in rural Alberta and Winnipeg, Manitoba... |
Dick Liddil Dick Liddil James Andrew "Dick" Liddil was an American outlaw who was one of the last surviving members of the James-Younger Gang... |
|
| Lars and the Real Girl Lars and the Real Girl Lars and the Real Girl is a 2007 American-Canadian comedy-drama film written by Nancy Oliver and directed by Craig Gillespie. It stars Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Kelli Garner and Patricia Clarkson... |
Gus | ||
| 2009 | Bright Star Bright Star (film) Bright Star is a 2009 film based on the last three years of the life of poet John Keats and his romantic relationship with Fanny Brawne. It stars Ben Whishaw as Keats and Abbie Cornish as Fanny... |
Charles Armitage Brown Charles Armitage Brown Charles Armitage Brown was born in Lambeth on 14 April 1787.He was a very close friend of the poet John Keats, as well as being a friend of artist Joseph Severn, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, Walter Savage Landor and Edward John Trelawny... |
Hollywood Film Festival Spotlight Award Hollywood Film Festival The Hollywood Film Festival is an annual Film festival which is located in Los Angeles, California, USA. The Festival was established in 1997 by Carlos de Abreu and his wife, model Janice Pennington.... National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor The National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor is an annual film award given by the National Society of Film Critics.The awards was given for the first time in 1968 .-1960s:-1970s:-1980s:-1990s:... Nominated — San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor The San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor is an award given by the San Diego Film Critics Society to honor the finest male acting achievementes in filmmaking.-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:... |
| Away We Go Away We Go (film) Away We Go is a 2009 comedy-drama directed by Academy Award-winning director Sam Mendes and written by the husband-and-wife team of Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida... |
Courtney Farlander | ||
| 2011 | Water for Elephants Water for Elephants (film) Water for Elephants is a 2011 American romantic drama film based on Sara Gruen's novel of the same name, directed by Francis Lawrence, from a screenplay by Richard LaGravenese... |
Charlie O'Brien | |
| The Beloved The Beloved (film) The Beloved is a 1970 film written and directed by George P. Cosmatos and marks his directorial debut. It was filmed on location in Cyprus.-Plot:... |
Henderson | ||
| Television | |||
| Year | Show | Role | Notes |
| 2003 | Third Watch Third Watch Third Watch is an American television drama series which first aired on NBC from 1999 to 2005 for a total of 132 episodes, broadcast in 6 seasons of 22 episodes each.... |
Thomas Warner | Recurring, 3 episodes |
| 2009 - 2010 | Parks and Recreation Parks and Recreation Parks and Recreation is an American comedy television series on NBC that focuses on Leslie Knope , a mid-level bureaucrat in the parks department of Pawnee, a fictional town in Indiana. Created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, the series debuted on April 9, 2009; it has run for three seasons and... |
Mark Brendanawicz Mark Brendanawicz Mark Brendanawicz is a fictional character in the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation. He is the city planner for Pawnee, Indiana, one of Ann Perkins's ex-boyfriends, and Leslie Knope's colleague. He is portrayed by Paul Schneider... |
Main cast |