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During the 1980s at a time when brat packers were ruling the big screen, Matthew Modine set himself apart from his peers though a series of impactful performances that capitalized on his versatility, corn-fed all American looks, and idiosyncratic persona. His work in the trio of mid-eighties masterpieces Birdy, Full Metal Jacket, and Married to the Mob illustrate Modine's tremendous range, his intuitive physicality, and his talent for breathing believability into even the quirkiest of characters.
Born in 1959, the youngest of seven children Modine grew up watching movies; his father was a drive-in theatre operator. Forced to move often because of his father's work, Modine no doubt took comfort in the constancy of film, and his prolonged exposure eventually led to his decision to become an actor. Moving to New York at age 18, he studied with Stella Adler, worked as a chef, got married (in 1980 to wife Caridad) and began getting regular commercial work.
In 1983 Modine made his film debut in John Sayles' comedy Baby It's You, and shared the Venice Film Festival's Best Actor award with the ensemble cast of Robert Altman's Streamers. A year later in Birdy he turned in a mesmerizing performance as a schizophrenic Vietnam veteran with an ornithological fixation. After roles in The Hotel New Hampshire, Mrs Soffel (1984) and Vision Quest (1985), Modine once again tackled the dehumanizing effects of Vietnam, this time as the wiseacre Private Joker in Stanley Kubrick's much-lauded Full Metal Jacket (1987). The following year he wisely chose to showcase his comedic talents as the goofy FBI agent in Married to the Mob. In 1993 he once again appeared as part of an Altman ensemble in Short Cuts (1993), and that same year was nominated for an Emmy award for his performance as an early AIDs researcher in the HBO film "And the Band Played On". Some of his other film credits include Gross Anatomy (1989), Memphis Belle, Pacific Heights (1990), Wind (1992) The Browning Version (1994) Cutthroat Island (1995), Any Given Sunday (1999) and an uncredited role in Notting Hill (1999) in the film-within-the-film scene.
Making the occasional foray onto television, Modine has garnered good reviews for his work in "The Way West," "What the Deaf Man Heard," "Flowers for Algernon" and, the 2001 fantasy miniseries "Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story." The owner of a 100 acre farm in upstate New York, Modine, an avid NY Knicks fan, fly fishes with next door neighbor Liam Neeson, paints, and does his own carpentry.
Source: amctv.com
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