Vince Vaughn is an American actor of Italian, Lebanese, Scottish, Irish and German descent. He grew up in Buffalo Grove, Illinois and then Lake Forest, Illinois, where he graduated from Lake Forest High School and was interested in theatre at a young age. He is frequently cast into roles as a light-hearted, confident, and over-talkative risk taker.
He obtained a role in a Chevrolet television commercial early in his acting career and felt for sure that he was set. After moving to Hollywood, he became a struggling actor facing rejection after rejection. He appeared in a few spots on television but finally got a speaking role in the movie Rudy in 1993.
It was while filming Rudy that he met Jon Favreau, who was working on the original draft for his movie Swingers. He wrote Vaughn into the film and he signed on as a favour to Favreau, only for it to become Vaughn's breakthrough role. Steven Spielberg saw him in Swingers, and cast him in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, which gave him an amount of exposure. From there, Vaughn went on to make A Cool, Dry Place and played Norman Bates in the 1998 remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. In 2000 he starred in The Cell with Jennifer Lopez and Made in 2001 (another Favreau film). Since 2003, Vince Vaughn's movie career has skyrocketed and is now considered a very bankable star. That year he had a major role in the hit movie Old School and in 2004 he was seen alongside Ben Stiller in the hits Starsky & Hutch and Dodgeball. He also starred in the Get Shorty sequel Be Cool and in Doug Liman's Mr. and Mrs. Smith, starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
In July 2005 he starred alongside fellow "frat pack" friend Owen Wilson, in Wedding Crashers, his latest film which has grossed over $100 million in the box.
