Breckin Erin Meyer is an American actor, voice actor, writer, producer and drummer, known for his roles in films such as Clueless, Road Trip, Rat Race and and for providing voices for the series of adult humor Robot Chicken.
Early life
Meyer was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Dorothy Ann, a travel agent and former microbiologist, and Christopher William Meyer, a management consultant. He has lived in California, Texas, West Virginia, and New Jersey. He has an older brother, Frank, and a younger brother, Adam, making him the middle born son of three boys. Meyer attended elementary school with Drew Barrymore and also attended Beverly Hills High School. Through his elementary school, he came into contact with Barrymore's agent, who signed Meyer. As a little boy, he was mostly seen in television advertisements, and also appeared as a child participant in the game show Child's Play He also slept in a closed coffin for several years in high school.
Career
Meyer played several roles as a druggie, starting with his debut in ', in which he was dispatched in a video game. His breakthrough screen role was in the teen hit Clueless as the skateboarding stoner. Meyer offered similar characterizations in The Craft and John Carpenter's Escape from L.A.. He played the best friend of an Olympic hopeful in the biopic Prefontaine and as a high-school student yearning to leave his hometown in Dancer, Texas Pop. 81. In 54, a look at life in the famous '70s nightspot Studio 54, the actor was cast as a busboy married to the coat check girl and pursued by a bartender. Meyer is close friends with Phillippe, with whom he and Seth Green share a production company. Meyer would subsequently appear in films including Go and The Insider before graduating to a full-fledged leading role in the DreamWorks hit Road Trip, in which he again played a character travelling cross country, a college student hoping desperately to retrieve a videotape of himself having sex with another girl, which was accidentally mailed to his long-distance girlfriend. Road Trip marked the first indication that Meyer's well-developed slacker sidekick persona had matured and could be tweaked to make him a full-fledged leading man. He was reteamed with Amy Smart in yet another racing cross country film, this time as part of the multi-plot ensemble of Rat Race, a sort-of homage to the all-star screwball chase films of the 1960s, such as It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Meyer put in a winning supporting turn as Meg Ryan's character's brother in the whimsical fantasy-comedy Kate & Leopold. Meyer also took on the role of Jon Arbuckle, the hapless owner of the famed comic book cat in the film adaptation of Garfield. Meyer also starred in Blue State with Anna Paquin in which he plays a passionately liberal guy on the campaign trail for John Kerry in the 2004 elections. He drunkenly pledges to move to Canada if Bush wins the election, and on his journey meets a mysterious young woman, played by Paquin. He co-starred with Matthew McConaughey in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Meyer regularly does writing and voice work on Robot Chicken, and was nominated for an Emmy for his writing on the ' specials. He also voiced the adolescent Joseph Gribble on the animated seriesKing of the Hill and starred on the Adult Swim series Titan Maximum. Meyer is also a musician, playing drums in the punk band The Street Walkin' Cheetahs and with Tom Morello's The Nightwatchman, as well as Ben Harper, Cypress Hill, Slash and Perry Farrell at L.A.'s Hotel Café. Meyer is the drummer for Tom Morello's alter ego The Nightwatchman's back-up band The Freedom Fighter Orchestra. He toured with Morello on The Nightwatchman's 2008 Justice Tour. He appears in Street Sweeper Social Club's video for "100 Little Curses" and "Promenade".
Personal life
Meyer married screenwriter and film directorDeborah Kaplan on October 14, 2001, and has two daughters with her. The two separated several times before they finally divorced in 2014. Since late 2017, he has been in a relationship with actress Linsey Godfrey. His brother, Frank Meyer, is a staffer and producer of Fresh Ink Online at G4tv.com.
