About this Artist
Academy Award and multi-Golden Globe nominee JOHN C. REILLY received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for “Best Supporting Actor” for his standout performance as Amos Hart in the Academy Award-winning film Chicago. Additionally, for that role, he was named “Best Supporting Actor” by the Las Vegas Film Critics, and was nominated by the Chicago Film Critics in the same category. That same year, Reilly starred in two other Academy Award-nominated films: Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York and Stephen Daldry’s The Hours, making it the first time that a single actor had been part of three of the five films in this prestigious category.
Reilly’s other Golden Globe nominations were for Columbia Picture’s Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story for “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy” and “Best Original Song – Motion Picture” for Walk Hard, which he co-wrote. Furthermore, this song was nominated for “Best Song Written for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media” at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards.
In 2008 Reilly reunited with Will Ferrell and producer Judd Apatow in the comedy Step Brothers. Released in July 2008, Step Brothers went on to earn over $100 million domestically for Columbia Pictures.
In 2010, Reilly released Cyrus opposite Academy Award-winner Marisa Tomei and Jonah Hill, earning him an IFP Spirit Award nomination for “Best Male Lead” and also a Satellite Award nomination for “Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.”
Reilly’s first film role came in Brian De Palma’s 1989 motion picture, Casualties of War. That was followed by appearances in a wide array of films, including Days of Thunder, Shadows and Fog, We’re No Angels, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Hoffa, Georgia, Dolores Claiborne, and The River Wild. However, as a regular in director Paul Thomas Anderson’s films, Reilly began attracting attention for his roles in Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, and Magnolia.
Reilly returned to his theater roots in 2000 when he starred in Sam Shepard’s Tony-nominated Broadway production, True West, opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman, garnering an Outer Critics Circle Award and Tony nomination for “Best Performance by a Leading Actor.” In April 2005 he starred in the Broadway production of Tennessee Williams’ classic A Streetcar Named Desire. His other stage credits include the Steppenwolf Theater productions of Othello, A Streetcar Named Desire, and The Grapes of Wrath, in which he starred alongside Gary Sinese. In addition, Reilly produced and played the title role in Ionesco’s Exit the King at the Actors Gang Theater in Los Angeles.
Reilly began filming God of Carnage with Academy Award-winners Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, and Jodie Foster in February 2011. Directed and written by Roman Polanski, the story revolves around two sets of parents who decide to have a cordial meeting after their sons are in a schoolyard brawl.
Born in Chicago and raised as the fifth of six children in an Irish-Lithuanian family, Reilly studied at the Goodman School of Drama at DePaul University.