January 31st, 2008 by admin

Colin Quinn (Colin James Quinn, born May 31 1976) is an Irish actor, who became famous due to his roles in “Alexander”, “Phone Booth”, “Minority Report”, “The Recruit”, “Miami Vice”, and many other movies.

Colin Quinn was born on May 31, 1976 in Dublin, Ireland. He was the forth child in the family of professional Eamon Quinn, who played in club Shamrock Rovers, and his wife Rita. As a young man, Quinn had quite an obstinate temper; he preferred to hang with friend about local bars, smoking weed and stealing in shops instead of going to school. At the age of seventeen, he was expelled from school for the fight with a teacher, who found Quinn sleeping at the lesson, and was beaten up instead of apologies. After the incident, Quinn left for Australia for a year.

Having returned to Dublin, on advice of his elder brother Eamon, Quinn began attending the School of Acting. In 1996, his cinema debut in drama “Disappearance of Finbar” took place, though his role was so insignificant that it was not mentioned in titles. Then in 1997, a small role in a low budget film “Drinking Crude” followed; then next summer Quinn appeared in a miniseries “Falling for a Dancer”,[1] action hereof is unfolding in the 30-s in Ireland. The plot is based on the story of a girl becoming pregnant after brief affair with an actor, who had to marry someone she did not love to save her reputation.

In 2000, the actor passed successfully the audition for anti-war film “Tigerland” of Joel Schumacher in a training camp in Louisiana, where recruits were trained before leaving for Vietnam. The role of Roland Bozz, a rioter and a strong pacifist, became an important stage in the Quinn’s career as an actor. His acting received favorable response of critics who predicted his “star future”. [3] Besides, he took the prize of the “Society of Film Critics Awards” of Boston and London.

After his role in 2001 in a run-of-the-mill comedy western “American heroes”, Quinn appeared in a military drama again, in “Hart’s War” about a war prisoners camp of the World War II, where he was co-starring with Bruce Willis. His role won the prize of the Shanghai Film Festival. Quinn’s career went uphill. In 2002, he played roles in two successful films more. First of these was the role of the member of Justice Department Danny Witwer in a fantastic thriller of Steven Spielberg “Minority Report” based on original story by Phillip K.Dick.

This film has become one of the main events of the year and gained huge popularity amongst audience and critics, achieving $358 million in ticket sales around the world, and was nominated to imposing number of prestigious cinema awards and prizes. His role of agent Witwer was nominated to the “Imperium” prize. The following job was in “Phone Booth”, a thriller of Joel Schumacher, where Stu Sheppard, Quinn’s hero, is trapped in a phone booth under aim of a maniac, threatening to kill Stu out of a sniper rifle if he leaves the booth.