Sean Patrick Astin was born February 25, 1971 in Santa Monica, California to John Astin (famous for playing Gomez on "The Addams Family" (1964) among other things) and Patty Duke , both actors. Although you may think that his first acting job was in The Goonies (1985), it wasn't. In 1981, at age 9, Sean starred with his mother in the after school special Please Don't Hit Me, Mom (1981) (TV). The Goonies (1985) followed and since then he has had a steady stream of good roles. Sean attended Crossroads High School for the Arts. He has also studied with the famous Stella Adler . Of course, we all know that starring in a teen comedy is almost inevitable for a young actor. Sean was no exception. In 1987 he co-starred with another teen heartthrob, Kirk Cameron in Like Father Like Son (1987). A few very good movies followed, including Toy Soldiers (1991) and Where the Day Takes You (1992). More recently Sean has starred in Rudy (1993) and the Showtime movie Harrison Bergeron (1995) (TV). But his career in film has expanded much further than just acting. He directed and co-produced the short film Kangaroo Court (1994) which was nominated in the Best Short Film category at the 67th Annual Academy Award s in 1995.

Since then Astin has gone on to star in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, on of the most successful film trilogies to date!