Tim Robbins
Tim Robbins (born October 16, 1958 Timothy Francis Robbins) is an American actor, screenwriter, director, producer, and small time musician. He is the longtime companion of actress Susan Sarandon, with whom he shares strong left-wing political views. Robbins is 6 feet, 4 inches tall.
Robbins was born in West Covina, California, but moved to Greenwich Village with his family at a young age while his father, Gil Robbins, pursued a career as a member of the folk music group The Highwaymen. Robbins joined Theater for a New City at age twelve, and participated in the drama club at Stuyvesant High School. Robbins spent two years at Plattsburgh State University, then returned to California to attend drama school at UCLA.
On graduation in 1981, Robbins founded the Actors' Gang in Los Angeles, an experimental theater group, with actor friends from his college softball team. He also took small parts in films, with a breakthrough part as pitcher "Nuke" LaLoosh in the 1988 baseball movie Bull Durham. On the set of that movie he began a relationship with fellow actor Sarandon that continues to the present day.
He received critical acclaim for his starring role as an amoral movie executive in the 1992 film The Player. His directorial and screenwriting debut was 1992's Bob Roberts, a mockumentary about a populist right-wing senatorial candidate. Robbins then starred alongside Morgan Freeman in the critically acclaimed The Shawshank Redemption based on Stephen King's short story.
Most of his fans agree that his crowning achievement was the scene in Fraternity Vacation (1985) where, in the role of frat animal "Mother," Robbins slapped a pole in a fit of rage over a stolen car.
Since that time he has written, produced, and directed several films with strong but subtle political content, such as the critically-acclaimed capital punishment saga Dead Man Walking in 1995, based on the book by Helen Prejean, which earned him a directorial Oscar nomination, and 1999's Depression-era musical Cradle Will Rock. Robbins also continues to act in mainstream Hollywood thrillers like Arlington Road (1999) and Antitrust (2001), and to act in and direct Actors' Gang theater productions.
Robbins lives in New York City with Sarandon and their three children. He is a prominent spokesperson for anti-globalization, and vocally opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In 2003 a 15th-anniversary celebration of Bull Durham at the National Baseball Hall of Fame was cancelled due to controversy over his and Sarandon's public anti-war stance.
He won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar and the SAG Award for his work in Mystic River (2003).
Since May 2005 he's been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post.
Selected filmography
- Fraternity Vacation (1985)
- Top Gun (1986)
- Five Corners (1988)
- Bull Durham (1988)
- Tapeheads (1988)
- Erik the Viking (1989)
- Jacob's Ladder (1990)
- The Player (1992)
- Bob Roberts writer, director (1992)
- The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
- The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
- Dead Man Walking writer, director (1995)
- Cradle Will Rock writer, director (1999)
- Nothing to Lose (1997)
- Mission to Mars (2000)
- High Fidelity (2000)
- Antitrust (2001)
- Human Nature (2001)
- Code 46 (2003)
- Mystic River (2003)
- War of the Worlds (2005)
- The Secret Life of Words (2005)
