From: Favorite Hunks & Other Things
Elijah Wood turns 33 today.
Elijah Jordan Wood (born January 28, 1981) is an American actor and film producer. He made his film debut with a minor part in Back to the Future Part II (1989), then landed a succession of larger roles that made him a critically acclaimed child actor by age 9, being nominated for several Young Artist Awards. As a child actor he starred in the films Radio Flyer (1992), The Good Son (1993), North (1994) and Flipper (1996), and began to transfer to teenage roles in the films The Ice Storm (1997), Deep Impact and The Faculty (both 1998). He is best known for his high-profile leading role as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003) and its prequel The Hobbit (2012). Since then, he has resisted typecasting by choosing varied roles in critically acclaimed films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Sin City, Green Street and Everything Is Illuminated (all 2005) and Bobby (2006).
Wood has also provided the voices of the main character in the award-winning animated musical films Happy Feet (2006) and Happy Feet Two (2011), as well as the lead, 9, in the Tim Burton-produced action/science fiction film 9 (2009). In 2005, he started his own record label, Simian Records. He did the voice acting for Spyro in the Legend of Spyro trilogy. In 2012, he began voicing Beck in the animated series Tron: Uprising, and Sigma in the tenth season of the Rooster Teeth series Red vs. Blue. Since 2011, Wood has been playing the role of Ryan Newman in FX's dark comedy Wilfred.
Wood, the second of three children, was born and raised in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, son of Warren and Debra (Krause) Wood, delicatessen operators. He is of English, German, Austrian, and Danish ancestry. He was raised Roman Catholic. He has a brother, Zachariah, and a sister, Hannah. At age seven, Wood began modeling in his hometown and took piano lessons. He appeared in elementary school in The Sound of Music, followed by the title character in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He also served as choir boy during the production of See How They Run, produced by the Marion Creative Council.
Elijah Wood is an older brother of actress Hannah Blessing Wood and younger brother of Zachariah Nathaniel Wood, who is a video game producer.
In an interview about Everything Is Illuminated, director Liev Schreiber commented that Wood has a "generosity of spirit" and a "sincere goodness as a human being." He supported campaigns for charity as Keep a Child Alive or ALDO/YouthAIDS. Wood is a music lover, owning 4,000 CDs and at one time citing his favorite band as The Smashing Pumpkins.
Wood has a tattoo of the word "nine" written in Tengwar script, but in the English language (rather than Quenya or Sindarin as is widely believed) below his waist on the right side, a reference to his character as one of the Fellowship of the Ring. It is simply a coincidence that he later starred in 9. The other actors of "The Fellowship" got the same tattoo with the exception of John Rhys-Davies. Rhys-Davies's stunt double from the film got the tattoo instead, thus the cast can still assert that "all" the members of the Fellowship acquired a tattoo.
In May 2006, Autograph Collector Magazine published its list of 10 Best & 10 Worst Hollywood Autograph Signers, Wood was ranked #7 of Best Signers.
On April 23, 2010, in a charitable gesture, Wood visited the town of Curepto, Chile, one of the hardest hit by the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Chile on February 27, 2010. He made personal visits to many of the victims and was accompanied by the first lady of Chile, Ms. Cecilia Morel.
In 2008, during an appearance on Jack Osbourne's show Adrenaline Junkie, he became the first person to cross Victoria Falls on ropes.
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