Paul William Walker (born September 12, 1973) is an American actor. He became well known in 1999 after creating the spread offense in the hit film Varsity Blues. He is also known for starring in the surprise summer hit The Fast and the Furious and has since gone on to star in its sequels 2 Fast 2 Furious and Fast & Furious and soon to be released Fast Five. His other films include Joy Ride, Running Scared, and Eight Below. The movies he has starred in have grossed more than $1.1 billion.
Walker was born in California and raised in the San Fernando Valley the area of Los Angeles County. The son of Paul Walker III (a sewer contractor) and Cheryl (née Crabtree; a former fashion model), he is the second oldest of his four siblings (two brothers and two sisters).Walker was raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormon, church. He attended and graduated from Village Christian School.After high school, he attended several community colleges where he majored in marine biology.
Walker's small-screen career began as a toddler, when he starred in a television commercial for Pampers.He began modeling at the age of 2[8] and began working on television shows in 1985, with roles in shows such as Highway to Heaven, Who's the Boss?, The Young and the Restless and Touched By an Angel.
Walker's film career began in 1987, with the horror/comedy film Monster in the Closet. He has continued with roles in several other movies without much success. It wasn't until 1998 that Walker made his feature film debut in the comedy Meet the Deedles, which finally gained him fame. This subsequently led to supporting roles in the movies Pleasantville, Varsity Blues, She's All That, and The Skulls.
In 2001, Walker's breakthrough role arrived when he starred opposite actor Vin Diesel in the successful action film The Fast and the Furious. The film established Walker as a notable film star and leading man and led to his reprisal of the role in the 2003 sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious. He continued his career with leading roles in films such as Joy Ride, Into the Blue, and Timeline, and also had a supporting role in Clint Eastwood's 2006 adaptation of Flags of Our Fathers.
Walker's most recent feature films are crime thriller Running Scared and Walt Disney Pictures' Eight Below, both released in 2006. Eight Below garnered critical-acclaim and opened in first place at the box office, grossing over US$20 million during its first weekend. During the filming of Running Scared, director Wayne Kramer stated that, "[Walker] is that guy on some level " when comparing Walker with his character in the movie, Joey Gazelle. Kramer continued on to say that he "loved working with [Walker] because as a director he’s completely supportive of my vision of what the film is. And even better, he’s completely game for it."
Walker starred in the independent film The Lazarus Project which was released on DVD on October 21, 2008. He subsequently returned to The Fast and the Furious franchise, reprising his role in Fast & Furious, which was released on April 3, 2009.
Walker has been cast opposite T.I., Idris Elba, Chris Brown, Matt Dillon and Hayden Christensen in the crime drama Takers, which began filming in early September 2008.
Walker, who was named as one of People's Most Beautiful People in 2001, currently resides in Santa Barbara, California, with his dog, a Chesapeake Bay Retriever.[His daughter, Meadow Rain (born in 1999), lives with her mother, a former girlfriend of Walker's. On January 28, 1999, Paul and his then-girlfriend Rebecca had a baby girl named Meadow Rain Walker. Even though Paul publicly admitted that Meadow was not planned, he says that she is his number one priority. Meadow lives with her mother in Hawaii. He is an avid surfer and enjoys the beach. Walker is a purple belt in Brazilan Jiujitsu under Paragon Jiujitsu, and is also a big car enthusiast. He has been dating Jasmine Pilchard-Gosnell for three years, starting when she was sixteen.
Walker's first love was marine biology, with his idol being Jacques Cousteau, and he joined the Board of Directors of The Billfish Foundation in 2006.He recently fulfilled a lifelong dream by starring in a National Geographic documentary about great white sharks, which aired on November 16, 2009. He spent 11 days as part of the crew, catching and tagging 7 great whites off the coast of Mexico. The expedition, led by Franciscan monk Chris Fischer, gathers measurements and DNA samples, and places satellite tags on the sharks to increase knowledge about shark movements in the oceans.
In March 2010, Walker went to Chile, specifically to Constitución in support of the people injured due to the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck on February 27th.
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