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 Richard Linklater (; born July 30, 1960) is an American filmmaker. He is known for making films that deal thematically with suburban culture and the effects of the passage of time. In 2015, Linklater was included on the annual ''Time'' 100 li ...

'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 List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

, 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 11. In 2001, at age six, Coltrane was cast by filmmaker

to play the title character in the film '' Boyhood''; Linklater wanted to make an unprecedented film that would show a boy's

coming of age Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can b ...

, 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 which time Coltrane had 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 was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

drama film '' Barry'', which premiered at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...

. The following year, they co-starred with Emma Watson in

James Ponsoldt James Ponsoldt is an American film director, actor and screenwriter. He directed the drama films '' Off the Black'' (2006) and '' Smashed'' (2012), the romantic comedy-drama ''The Spectacular Now'' (2013), and the dramas '' The End of the Tour'' ( ...

's film adaptation of the

Dave Eggers Dave Eggers (born March 12, 1970) is an American writer, editor, and publisher. His 2000 memoir, '' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius'', became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Eggers is a ...

novel '' The Circle'' (2017), which premiered at the

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Enterprises. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive programming. The festival ...

Personal life

Coltrane has spoken of their discomfort with binary gender roles: "For me, the binary gender demarcation always has felt just kind of like ... a charade, like this character that I have to play." Additionally, they have expressed a preference to be identified with singular "they/them" pronouns.

Filmography

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Coltrane, Ellar 1994 births 21st-century American actors American child actors American film actors Living people Actors from Austin, Texas American non-binary actors