Jake Weber

Equally at home onstage or in front of the camera, Jake Weber entered films with two wildly disparate 1989 pictures, writer-director Melvin Van Peebles little-seen farce "Identity Crisis" and Oliver Stone's "Born on the Fourth of July," but turned down roles in "Glory" (also 1989) and "Reversal of Fortune" (1990) to continue his graduate studies at Juilliard. He honed his classical chops in a number of Shakespeare in the Park productions, including "Richard III" (1990), "Othello" (1991) and "As You Like It" (1992), as well as acting in Off-Broadway productions of John Patrick Shanley's "The Big Funk" (1990) and the highly-acclaimed "Mad Forest" (1991). The blandly attractive blond actor made an auspicious Broadway debut playing five Italian brothers in Alan Ayckbourn's farcical "A Small Family Business" (1992). He had small roles as an ill-fated Hassid in Sidney Lumet's "A Stranger Among Us" (1992) and as a secret informant who puts his life on the line in Alan J. Pakula's "The Pelican Brief" (1993) before enjoying more screen time as a violent but likable pimp in the independent "Skin Art" (also 1993).