Ellar Coltrane Kinney Salmon (born August 27, 1994) is an American actor. They are best known for their role as Mason Evans Jr. in
Richard Linklater's film ''
Boyhood'', for which they won the
Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer.
Life and career
Coltrane was born in
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...
, to Genevieve (née Kinney), an
equine-assisted therapist for
autistic people,
and Bruce Salmon, a musician.
Their parents divorced when they were nine, and their mother subsequently remarried.
Coltrane's half-sister, Evelyn, was born when they were eleven.
In 2001, at age six, Coltrane was cast by filmmaker
Richard Linklater to play the title character of sorts of the film ''
Boyhood''; Linklater wanted to make an unprecedented film that would show a boy's
coming of age, but with the actors growing up or aging on screen. Coltrane and other members of the cast were filmed intermittently for several days at a time between May 2002 and August 2013, by the time they turned 19; there were 45 days of filming altogether. During Coltrane's childhood, they also appeared in various other films, including a small role in Linklater's 2006 film ''
Fast Food Nation''.
In 2016, Coltrane appeared in the
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
drama film ''
Barry Barry may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Barry (name), including lists of people with the given name, nickname or surname, as well as fictional characters with the given name
* Dancing Barry, stage name of Barry Richards (born c. 195 ...
'', which premiered at the