born 6 November 1970

Dean Murphy, Albury, Australia, writer/director

Ethan Hawke, Austin, Texas, actor

Femke Wolting, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, documentarian

Geoff Rodkey, Freeport, Illinois, writer

Jonna Liljendahl, Stockholm, Sweden, actress

Leopoldo Laborde, Mexico City, writer/director

Melissa Bridge, Salt Lake City, Utah, actress

Petra Winckelmans, birthplace unspecified, Belgian actress

Sebastián Estevanez, Buenos Aires, Argentina, actor

Tom Hastings, San Jose, California, talents unspecified

Today’s Winner: not my favorite, never has been. The photo that accompanies his IMDb page seems to perfectly encapsulate my undersubstantiated vision of his offscreen persona, The Smuggest Douche In The Whole Of Manhattan.

However, he has worked hard, and he’s earned his midlevel stardom. He may actually even be a nice and decent guy. Certainly his devotion to showing up at courtside to watch the last decade’s putrid Knickerbockers is due some sort of credit. Mainly, as he’s allowed himself to play skeevier and less puppyish, I find he can be eminently watchable. But only when properly cast.

And, look, I will add that if more actors wrote novels which they then adapted into screenplays and directed themselves, the argument can be made that the world would be a marginally more interesting place. Not many people have done that, no matter how wan and forgettable the result.

I will also allow that am very intrigued by one coming attraction, the fictional story of a boy’s boyhood, shot using the same company of actors a few weeks a year over a multi-year span. That may not turn out well, but it will surely turn out interestingly.