Film & TV
James Duval
born 1972 · actor
Detroit-born actor of Donnie Darko, Independence Day and Gregg Araki's cult 'Teen Apocalypse' films.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 54- Birth name
- James Edward Duval
- Detroit years
- 1972–1974
- Field
- Film & TV
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
James Duval was born in Detroit in 1972 to a Franco-Vietnamese mother from Saigon and a father of Irish and Native American descent. The family moved to Los Angeles when he was two, and he grew up in Southern California, studying classical piano and acting in school theater before graduating from Gladstone High School in Covina in 1989. Director Gregg Araki noticed him at a Hollywood café they both frequented and cast him in Totally F***ed Up (1993), the first of the loosely linked 'Teen Apocalypse' films that continued with The Doom Generation and Nowhere. He reached mainstream audiences in Independence Day (1996) and became a cult figure as Frank, the unsettling man in the rabbit costume, in Donnie Darko (2001). His Detroit connection is his birth.
Highlights
- Frank, the rabbit-masked figure, in Donnie Darko (2001)
- Lead roles in Gregg Araki's Totally F***ed Up, The Doom Generation and Nowhere
- Role in Independence Day (1996)
- Born in Detroit to a Franco-Vietnamese mother from Saigon