Danny Huston
About
Biography
Filmography
Family & Companions
Biography
The third generation of a Hollywood empire that included father John Huston, sister Anjelica Huston and grandfather Walter Huston, Danny Huston began his career behind the camera but truly came into his own when he instead positioned himself in front of it. The dashing character actor with the rich voice and raffish charm earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for sending up the family business in "ivans xtc" (2000), and from that leading role, went on to give outstanding supporting performances in highly acclaimed dramas like "21 Grams" (2003),"The Aviator" (2004), "The Constant Gardener" (2005) and "Children of Men" (2006). Throughout his career, the actor regularly showed an interest in heady, literary-inspired works, but he found his widest audience with a run of edge-of-your-seat blockbusters like "30 Days of Night" (2007), "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" (2009) and "Wonder Woman" (2017), while portraying historical figures like King Richard the Lionheart in "Robin Hood" (2010) and the ancient Greek god of the ocean Poseidon in "Clash of the Titans" (2010) and "Wrath of the Titans" (2012). Whether on big screens or small, Huston proved that he possessed his father's adventurous spirit and was proudly using it to explore beyond the expected confines of the family name.
Though born on foreign soil in Rome, Italy, on May 14, 1962, Danny Huston's status was instantly that of Hollywood royalty. His mother was actress Zoe Sallis while his father was legendary actor-director-screenwriter John Huston, best known for "The Maltese Falcon" (1941), "The Misfits" (1961) and "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948), for which he earned an Academy Award for his direction and his adapted screenplay. The film also garnered a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for well-known stage and screen star Walter Huston, the filmmaker's father and Huston's grandfather. Although his parents never wed - in fact the pair's affair took place in the middle of Huston's third of five marriages - it was through this union to Enrica Soma that Danny became the half-sister of Anjelica Huston, who was also destined for film notoriety with a Best Actress Oscar of her own for "Prizzi's Honor" (1985), which was directed by her father. Huston was raised by his mother in Rome, London, and Ireland, among other places, and grew up idolizing his larger-than-life dad whom he visited on movie sets in exotic locales. While he showed a natural affinity for the family business with his own childhood Super-8 movies, Huston initially planned to become an artist. By the age of 21, however, he was working alongside his dad, directing the main titles sequence for the period drama, "Under the Volcano" (1984).
Huston made his feature film-directing debut with "Mr. North" (1988), an adaptation of Thornton Wilder's fable-like last novel, starring Anthony Edwards as a man whose mystical powers help heal an ailing Rhode Island town. John Huston was set to play the lead, but after years of battling emphysema, he fell ill and died a month after principle photography began. Veteran actor Robert Mitchum stepped in to fill the void but even with his star power and the Huston family name, the film met with a tepid reception. It did, however, introduce Huston to supporting player Virginia Madsen, whom he married in 1989 and cast in his sophomore effort, the likewise literary-inspired "Becoming Colette" (1992). Huston's limp telling of the sexual and intellectual awakening of French novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette was critically dismissed and Huston kept a low profile until 1996, when he helmed the direct-to-video horror movie "The Maddening" (1995), starring Burt Reynolds and Angie Dickinson. When Huston stepped away from the director's chair to focus on acting, the tall, Hollywood-handsome charmer fared better.
Huston made his first appearance in a small role as a bartender in "Leaving Las Vegas" (1995), and progressed to larger roles in Bernard Rose's lavish adaptation of Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" (1997), and Mike Figgis' experimental "Timecode" (2000). Huston re-teamed with Rose and tackled his first leading role in "ivans xtc" (2000), playing a dying Hollywood agent on a futile search for sympathy. The newcomer was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his performance in the well-received film and subsequently became a busy supporting player with roles as a sinister hotel manager in "Hotel" (2001), an unscrupulous young business man in "Eden" (2001) and Naomi Watt's ill-fated husband in "21 Grams" (2003). In "Silver City" (2005), writer-director John Sayles' political satire and murder mystery, Huston played a former journalist-turned-rumpled private investigator who tries to find the link between a dead body and a gubernatorial hopeful (Chris Cooper). His career gained momentum with his starring role opposite Nicole Kidman as a wealthy businessman whose fiancée (Kidman) is convinced that a 10-year-old boy is the reincarnation of her former husband in the roundly dismissed "Birth" (2004). He went on to appear in Martin Scorsese's epic, "The Aviator" (2004), in a small role as pilot and TWA president Jack Frye.
Huston aligned himself with a number of highly acclaimed films over the next few years, giving an intriguing and measured performance in Fernando Meirelles' Golden Globe and Academy Award nominated "The Constant Gardener" (2005), playing the conservative colleague and friend of a British diplomat (Ralph Fiennes) whose wife (Rachel Wiesz) is mysteriously murdered after discovering corruption between Kenya's government and the pharmaceutical industry. Huston won a Best Supporting Actor honor from the Satellite Awards and went on to take the lead as a psychopathic killer and one of a band of Australian outback outlaws in the critically acclaimed "The Proposition" (2005), co-starring Guy Pearce and Ray Winstone. Huston took on the daunting task of a starring portrayal of Hollywood great Orson Welles in "Fade to Black" (2006), a thriller set in the world of 1940s filmmaking, and essayed Joseph of Austria, older brother and confidante of "Marie Antoinette" (2006) in Sofia Coppola's boldly modern take on the mixed blessings of Baroque excess, starring Kirsten Dunst in the title role. The same year he had a supporting role in Alfonso Cuaron's political thriller "Children of Men" (2006), which landed at the top of dozens of film critics' year-end "best of" lists.
While Huston's career momentum continued unabated, his personal life turn a dark turn in 2007 when his estranged wife, with whom he was in the midst of divorce proceedings, committed suicide by jumping from the top of the couple's home, leaving behind their three-year-old daughter. Coincidentally, Huston's next screen appearance was alongside first wife Virginia Madsen in "The Number 23" (2007), Joel Schumacher's critically reviled thriller starring Jim Carrey. Huston's follow-up thriller effort "30 Days of Night" (2007), a comic book adaptation in which he played the head of a group of vampires who terrorize an Alaska town, fared better at the box office and with critics. Huston's next critical coup came in the form of his portrayal of statesman and Founding Father Samuel Adams in the HBO miniseries "John Adams" (2008), which chronicled the rise of his cousin, played by Paul Giamatti. Hailed as one of the year's best, the miniseries earned 23 Emmy nominations.
Huston's supporting role as the editor of an upscale men's magazine in the British indie "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People" (2008) fared well in the U.K., while his follow-up starring role in an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's "The Kreutzer Sonata" (2008) was only screened at the Edinburgh Film Festival that summer. However the actor found a wide audience for his role as William Stryker in the highly anticipated prequel "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" (2009), in which he essayed the younger version of the character played by Brian Cox in "X-Men: The Last Stand" (2006). Following a supporting role in "Boogie Woogie" (2009), a send-up of the London art scene, Huston kept his toehold in the action world with "Laundry Warrior" (2009), about an Asian warrior hiding out in the American West, and appeared alongside Mel Gibson and Ray Winstone in an adaptation of the BBC series "Edge of Darkness" (2009).
After portraying Greek god of the sea Poseidon opposite Liam Neeson in "Clash of the Titans" (2010) - a role he reprised for the sequel "Wrath of the Titans" (2012) - Huston played the flamboyant attorney to Jack Kevorkian (Al Pacino) in Barry Levinson's acclaimed cable film "You Don't Know Jack" (HBO, 2010). He went on to play King Richard the Lionheart to Russell Crowe's "Robin Hood" (2010), before turning to the small screen to portray fictional mobster Ben "The Butcher" Diamond on the acclaimed cable series "Magic City" (Starz, 2012-13). As fans were awaiting the second season of his new series, Huston had a supporting role in "Hitchcock" (2012), a showbiz biopic about Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) and the difficulties he had making "Psycho" (1960). The film also starred Helen Mirren as Hitchcock's wife, Alma Reville, Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh and James D'Arcy as Anthony Perkins. He closed out the year with a Golden Globe nod for Best Supporting Actor for his work on "Magic City." Huston's TV work continued with turns on two seasons of Ryan Murphy's "American Horror Story" (FX 2011- ), as well as limited series "Paranoid" (Netflix 2016). During this period, Huston also co-starred in Tim Burton's "Big Eyes" (2014), Spanish historical drama "The Liberator" (2013), action thriller "Pressure" and Bernard Rose's stylized adaptation "Frankenstein" (2015). Following supporting roles in romantic dramas "All I See is You" (2016) and "Newness" (2017), Huston co-starred as a military man opposite Gal Gadot in comic book blockbuster "Wonder Woman" (2017).
Filmography
Director (Feature Film)
Cast (Feature Film)
Title Design (Feature Film)
Misc. Crew (Feature Film)
Director (Special)
Cast (Special)
Cast (TV Mini-Series)
Life Events
1987
Directed father John Huston in the TV-movie "Mister Corbett's Ghost"
1988
Helmed first feature "Mr. North," an adaptation of Thornton Wilder's last novel; produced by father
1991
Directed Klaus Maria Brandauer in "Becoming Colette," a biopic of writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
1995
Made acting debut in Mike Figgis' "Leaving Las Vegas"
1996
Directed "The Maddening" with Burt Reynolds
1996
Directed "Ice Princess," starring Katerina Witt (HBO)
1997
Cast in Bernard Rose's remake of "Anna Karenina"; adapted from Leo Tolstoy's novel
2000
Played the titular Ivan in "Ivans XTC," director Bernard Rose's adaption of Leo Tolstoy's <i>The Death of Ivan Ilyich</i>
2001
Re-teamed with director Mike Figgis for his experimental ensemble piece "Hotel"
2003
Cast as Naomi Watts's doomed husband in Alejandro Gonzalez' "21 Grams"
2004
Cast as Nicole Kidman's fiancée in Jonathan Glazer's "Birth"
2004
Played a former idealistic journalist turned rumpled private detective in John Sayles' "Silver City"
2004
Portrayed the president of TWA in Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator," starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes
2005
Co-starred in Fernando Meirelles' "The Constant Gardener"
2006
Played Orson Welles in "Fade to Black"
2006
Cast as Emperor Joseph II in writer-director Sofia Coppola's stylish "Marie Antoinette"
2006
Cast in Alfonso Cuaron's futuristic tale "The Children of Men"
2007
Co-starred in "30 Days of Night," a horror film based on the comic book miniseries of the same name
2008
Joined the ensemble of "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People"
2009
Played William Stryker in the Marvel Comics film "X-Men Origins: Wolverine"
2010
Co-starred opposite Mel Gibson in the film adaptation of "Edge of Darkness"
2010
Played King Richard the Lionheart opposite Russell Crowe in Ridley Scott's adaptation of "Robin Hood"
2010
Cast as Kevorkian's flamboyant attorney Geoffrey Fieger in the Barry Levinson directed HBO film "You Don't Know Jack," about Dr. Jack Kevorkian (Al Pacino)
2010
Portrayed Poseidon, the god of the sea, in the remake of "Clash of the Titans"
2012
Reprised role of Poseidon in the fantasy adventure sequel "Wrath of the Titans"
2012
Acted opposite Nicolas Cage in action thriller "Stolen"
2012
Cast in biographical drama "Hitchcock," starring Anthony Hopkins
2012
Cast as Ben Diamond on "Magic City"
2013
Had a recurring role on "American Horror Story"
2014
Appeared on episodes of Showtime drama "Masters of Sex"
2016
Appeared as Nick Waingrow on mini-series "Paranoid"
2017
Co-starred in "Wonder Woman" alongside Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, and Robin Wright
2018
Co-starred in ensemble comedy "Game Night"
Family
Companions
