Life and career

Cross was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the son of Maureen (née Toumey), a real estate agent, and Michael J. Cross, who worked in marketing. He has four siblings. Cross grew up in Pelham, New York and attended Pelham Middle School and Pelham Memorial High School. For his undergraduate studies, Cross transferred from Hartford's Trinity College to Columbia University.

As a child actor, Cross appeared in the 1997 Disney Channel Original Movie Northern Lights and Hollywood films Desperate Measures, Wide Awake and Jack Frost, all of which were released in 1998. Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, he also appeared in several television roles, and played Casey Hughes on As the World Turns between 1999 to 2004.

In 2006, Cross played the young Augusten Burroughs in Running with Scissors, a drama also featuring Annette Bening and Evan Rachel Wood, and appeared as real-life Marine Franklin Sousley in the big-budget Flags of Our Fathers, a Clint Eastwood-directed war film. Cross has said that he enjoyed the transition from appearing in Running with Scissors, which he has described as "very character driven and smaller" to the high-profile "epic" Flags of Our Fathers. Running with Scissors has been described by media sources as Cross's "breakout performance". Cross was also in the film Untraceable, with Diane Lane.

Cross portrayed gay rights activist Dick Pabich in the 2008 Oscar-nominated Harvey Milk biopic Milk.

Filmography

[ Source: Wikipedia ]