Tim Robbins Biography

Tim Robbins won an Oscar as best supporting actor for his role in the 2003 Clint Eastwood drama Mystic River. Robbins grew up in Greenwich Village in New York, where he got involved with the theater at the age of 12. After high school he moved to Los Angeles and studied drama and acting, co-founding a theater group called The Actors’ Gang. He began working in television and movies in the early ’80s and had roles in The Sure Thing (1985, starring John Cusack) and Top Gun (1986, starring Tom Cruise) before making it big as the goofy pitcher Nuke LaLoosh in the jovial baseball flick Bull Durham (1988). Dramatic roles in Jacob’s Ladder (1990) and The Player (1992) showed his skill as an actor, and his mock-documentary Bob Roberts (1992) showed he was no slouch as a writer and director. He has made two other films as writer/director, Dead Man Walking (1995, starring Sean Penn) and Cradle Will Rock (1999), and several films in lead and supporting roles, including The Shawshank Redemption (1994, with Morgan Freeman), Arlington Road (1999), High Fidelity (2000) and the Steven Spielberg version of War of the Worlds (2005, starring Tom Cruise).