Elijah Wood
Elijah Wood
Elijah Wood at WonderCon 2009
Born
Elijah Jordan Wood
January 28, 1981
(1981-01-28)
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, U.S.
Other
name(s)
Lij, Eli, Elwood (nicknames)
Occupation
Actor
Years active
1989 – present
Elijah Jordan Wood (born January 28, 1981)
is an American actor. Making his film debut
with a minor part in Back to the Future Part
II (1989), he landed a succession of sub-
sequent larger roles and became a critically
acclaimed child actor by age 13.
After his high-profile role as Frodo Bag-
gins in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings
trilogy, he has resisted typecasting by choos-
ing varied roles in critically-acclaimed films
such as Bobby, Eternal Sunshine of the Spot-
less Mind, Sin City, Green Street and
Everything Is Illuminated. Most recently he
starred in the film Day Zero (2007) and
provided the voice of the main character,
Mumble, in the award-winning animated film
Happy Feet. He also played an American
tourist turned vampire in Paris, je t’aime. In
2005, he started his own record label, Simian
Records. His next project is the upcoming
Iggy Pop biopic The Passenger.
In 2006, he became a well-known voice
actor in video gaming and would soon be-
come the voice of the video game icon, Spyro
the Dragon, starting with The Legend of
Spyro: A New Beginning.
In 2008, he set a new world record when
he became the first person ever to cross the
Victoria Falls on ropes during an appearance
on
Jack Osbourne’s
show Adrenaline
Junkie.[1]
Early life
Wood, the second of three children, was born
and raised in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Debra D.
(née Krause) and Warren W. Wood, del-
icatessen operators.[2] He is of German, Pol-
ish, Irish and English descent. Wood has an
older brother, Zachariah "Zach" Wood (seven
years older) and a younger sister, Hannah
Wood (two years younger). At age three,
Wood began modeling in his hometown and
took piano lessons from Marlene Lofts-
gaarden in Cedar Rapids. He took to the
stage in his elementary school’s staging of
the play The Sound of Music. The following
year, he gr