Biography

Anton Yelchin is an American actor best known for starring as Bobby Garfield opposite Anthony Hopkins in Hearts in Atlantis (2001), and as Tommy opposite Robin Williams in the House of D (2004).

He was born Anton Viktorovich Yelchin on March 11, 1989, in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, Soviet Union. His father, Viktor Yelchin, and his mother, Irina, were a successful pair of professional figure-skaters in Leningrad, and his grandfather was also a professional sportsman, a soccer player. Yelchin was only a 6-month-old baby when he emigrated to the United States, where his parents eventually developed coaching careers.

Young Anton Yelchin demonstrated his strong personality from the early age of 4, he declined his parent’s tutelage in figure skating, because he was fond of acting, and he knew exactly what he wanted to do in his life. Since his school years, he attended acting class in Los Angeles, and eventually he was noticed by casting agents. In 2000, at the age of 10, Yelchin made his debut on television, appearing as Robbie Edelstein in _ER: Be Still My Heart (2000 TV episode)_.

At the age of 11, Yelchin shot to fame as Bobby Garfield co-starring opposite Anthony Hopkins in Hearts in Atlantis (2001), and earning himself the 2002 Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film as Leading Young Actor. Over the course of his short acting career, he has already played roles in more than twenty feature films and television productions. He is billed as Pavel Chekov in the latest installment of the ‘Star Trek’ franchise, Star Trek (2009).

Outside of his acting profession, Anton Yelchin loves reading, he is also fond of playing chess. He writes music and performs with a band where he also plays piano and guitar. He is living in Los Angeles, California.

Source: imdb

Trivia

Anton plays in a rock band called The Hammerheads where he is credited as ‘vox, guitar and poet’.

Anton is five feet and nine inches tall.

Anton attended Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies in Tarzana, California.

After doing the movie Alpha Dog, Anton, primarily a movie actor, revealed he would like to work on a show like 24 or do voices for the animation comedy Family Guy.

Anton’s first on-screen kiss was in a ferris wheel scene in the movie Hearts in Atlantis.

Anton considers Robin Williams, his co-star in House of D, to be the funniest person alive.

Anton listens to a wide selection of music. Among the artists he listens to are The Beatles, Wu-Tang Clan, Charlie Parker, and Buena Vista Social Club.

Anton plays the guitar. He used to get together with his friends in high school to jam.

He loves playing chess and reading.

Both of his parents are still involved in figure skating. His father Viktor coaches skaters in California and his mother Irina choreographs skating routines

Anton is an only child.

In 2002, Anton won a Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film – Leading Young Actor for Hearts in Atlantis

Anton immigrated from Russia to the US when he was just six months old.

Quotes

(on being caught up in Hollywood’s celebrity culture) My parents are really good at keeping me level-headed, not that I’ve ever had the desire to not be level-headed. That’s really disgusted me in other people and I’ve always kept myself in check. I really see no reason in not being level headed.

(talking about his native country) Russia is very complicated. It is one of the most complicated histories. I could go on about this forever. It produces Dostoyevsky and Rachmaninoff and then it produces Stalins and Lenins. It is such a strange combination. I don’t know why that rant about Russia was necessary.

To me high school is such an unhealthy place in general. Every teenager is [going through] this incredible hormonal explosion. Then they put a thousand of them in one place. It is like putting hot air in a balloon.

(on being faced with the decision of leaving home, like his character in “House of D”) I think it’s such a difficult thing to do, and I don’t know if I’m strong enough

(on doing a comedy, “Charlie Bartlett”, after several dramatic roles) Everything that I’ve worked on, I’ve wanted to work on and it was a learning experience for me. But it was nice to get to be funny and stuff for a change.

on doing a movie based on a true story like “Alpha Dog”) You always want to be as realistic as possible, to the full extent of my abilities or whatever, but I just felt sort of this really had to be as real as I could make it, as real as I could imagine.

(about figure skating) My mom and dad would always tried to teach me, but I hated it!