John Cusack celebrates his 47th birthday today and to celebrate, we decided to take a look back at his accomplished career of fan favorite movies and cult classics. Here are 47 facts to celebrate 47 years:
1. Attended the Piven Theater Workshop in Evanston, Illinois, run by the parents of Jeremy Piven.
2. He and Piven are close friends and former roomates.
3. Together Cusack and Piven have appeared in 9 movies together, including one compilation of short films titled Elvis Stories.
4. Not to be outdone, his sister Joan has appeared in 10 movies with him.
5. Tim Robbins is catching up. He and Cusack have appeared in six movies together.
6. He sends shout outs his favorite bands in his movies, either with a T-shirt, poster or on the soundtrack.
8. He was good friends with Hunter S. Thompson and almost got to play him in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
9. Apocalypse Now is one of his favorite films.
10. In 2006, Total Film asked him what his Top Five films that he's made were. His picks: The Grifters, Grosse Point Blank, The Thin Red Line, High Fidelity and Max.
11. The best scripts he's ever read: Max and Being John Malkovich.
12. He beat out Christian Slater for the role of Lloyd in Say Anything.
13. High Times magazine named him Stoner of the Year for his performance in Hot Tub Time Machine.
14. "I've made 10 good films. The ones that suck I tend to blank out. It's like I never even made them. Well, there aren't 40 that are great, put it that way. But that's fine. Ten is a good batting average."
15. "I was a teen star. That's disgusting enough."
16. Featured as #22 on VH1's 100 Greatest Teen Stars countdown.
17. He's appeared in two movies as a limo driver (2012 and Identity) and they both co-starred Amanda Peet.
18. His 1983 movie Class featured three Cusacks in acting roles: John's father Dick Cusack, his sister Joan and himself.
19. During the dance scene in Sixteen Candles, John wears a WLS T-shirt. During the '80s, WLS was a Top 40 music station in Chicago.
20. Because John was only 17 when The Sure Thing was filming, he had to seek legal emancipation from his parents in order to shoot on location.
21. Director Savage Steve Holland stated in an interview that John hated Better Off Dead. Critics and audiences loved it though. It holds an 82% freshness rating on RottenTomatoes.
22. Holland did the animation for the next Cusack movie, One Crazy Summer, which featured two bunnies that get blown up at the end of the film. The bunnies bear a strong resemblance to the late Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. Holland was upset the duo had roasted his earlier Cusack film.
23. John earned an "Angry Messenger" credit for a cameo in Broadcast News. The appearance takes place during the staff firings when a young man yells, "sons-a bitches!" and throws a messenger bag onto the office floor. His face is never seen, but the voice sounds like Cusack's.
26. John was a big fan of the book The Grifters and tried to option the rights when he was still in high school.
27. He and Anjelica Houston accepted much less than their usual fees to be in The Grifters.
28. Grosse Point Blank features the most acting appearances of the Cusack family. John, his brother Bill and sisters Ann and Joan all appear in the film. Only John's father Dick Cusack is absent.
30. His 1999 movie Pushing Tin co-starred Billy Bob Thornton and Angelina Jolie. We know what happened with that crazy couple.
31. But back to John. He took marionette-puppeteering lessons in order to prepare for his role in Being John Malkovich.
32. Cusack and the screenwriters of High Fidelity wrote the script with Jack Black in mind for the role of Barry. Black nearly turned the role down, but reconsidered.
34. Cusack wanted Bob Dylan for the Bruce Springsteen cameo part, but Dylan was unavailable.
36. In Identity, all ten main characters share the same birthday. The odds of that happening in real life are 1 in 115 sextillion (that's 115 with 21 zeroes).
37. Runaway Jury was the tenth movie starring Cusack and Piven and the first with Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman in the same film.
38. Cusack's character's last name in The Ice Harvest, Arglist, translates to "guile" or "deceitful" in German.
40. 1408 was the second appearance of Cusack in a Stephen King film adaptation. Stand By Me was the first.
42. Gerard Butler was originally considered for the lead role but turned it down due to scheduling conflicts.
43. Cusack made his decision to join the cast almost entirely based off of the title.
44. He's probably spent the morning celebrating his birthday at the Chicago Blackhawks Stanley Cup victory parade.
45. He holds the rank of a level 6 black belt in Ukidokan Kickboxing.
46. He has led the Wrigley Field crowd in a 7th inning stretch rendition of Take Me Out to the Ball Game.
47. He received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last year before the premiere of The Raven.
