Anthony Michael Hall (born Michael Anthony Thomas Charles Hall; April 14, 1968) is an American actor. Following his film debut in Six Pack (1982) and a supporting role as Russell "Rusty" Griswold in National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Hall had his breakout with starring roles in three John Hughes-directed films: Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Weird Science. Mainstream media associated Hall with a group of young actors known as the "Brat Pack" due to his roles in those films.
Hall diversified his roles to avoid becoming typecast as his geek persona, joining the cast of Saturday Night Live (1985–1986) and starring in films such as Out of Bounds (1986), Johnny Be Good (1988), and Edward Scissorhands (1990). Following multiple minor roles in the 1990s, he starred as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in the television film Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999).
Hall experienced a career resurgence with the lead role in the USA Network science fiction series The Dead Zone (2002–2007) and a supporting role in the superhero film The Dark Knight (2008). In the 2010s and 2020s, Hall starred in the films Results (2015), War Machine (2017), Bodied (2017), Halloween Kills (2021), and Trigger Warning (2024). He also had a main role on the third season of the Amazon Prime Video series Reacher (2025).
Early life Michael Anthony Thomas Charles Hall was born on April 14, 1968, in the West Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. He is the only child of blues-jazz singer Mercedes Hall's first marriage. She divorced Hall's father, Larry, an auto-body-shop owner, when their son was six months old. When Hall was three, he and his mother relocated to the West Coast, where she found work as a featured singer. After a year and a half, they returned to the East, eventually moving to New York City, where Hall grew up. Hall's ancestry is English, Irish and Italian.Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: He has a half-sister, Mary Chestaro, from his mother's second marriage to Thomas Chestaro, a show business manager. His half-sister is a singer performing under the name Mary C. He transposed his first and middle names when he entered show business because there was another actor named Michael Hall who was already a member of the Screen Actors Guild. Hall attended St. Hilda's & St. Hugh's School of New York before moving on to Manhattan's Professional Children's School. Hall began his acting career at age eight and continued throughout high school. "I did not go to college," he has said, "but I'm an avid reader in the ongoing process of educating myself." Through the 1980s, Hall's mother managed his career, eventually relinquishing that role to her second husband.
Career Early years At the age of seven, Hall started his career in commercials. He was the Honeycomb cereal kid and appeared in several commercials for toys and Bounty. His stage debut was in 1977, when he was cast as the young Steve Allen in Allen's semi-autobiographical play The Wake. He went on to appear in the Lincoln Center Festival's production of St. Joan of the Microphone, and in a play with Woody Allen. In 1980, he made his screen debut in the Emmy-winning TV movie The Gold Bug, in which he played the young Edgar Allan Poe. In 1981, he starred as Huck Finn in Rascals and Robbers: The Secret Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn opposite Patrick Creadon, but it was not until the release of the 1982 Kenny Rogers film Six Pack that he gained real notice.
John Hughes: 1983–1986 The following year, Hall was chosen for the role of Rusty Griswold, Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo's son, in National Lampoon's Vacation, catching the attention of the film's screenwriter John Hughes, who was about to begin directing. "For [Hall] to upstage Chevy, I thought, was a remarkable accomplishment for a 13-year-old kid," said Hughes. The film was a significant box office hit in 1983, grossing over $61 million in the United States. After Vacation, Hall moved on to other projects and declined to reprise his role in the 1985 sequel.
Hall's breakout role came in 1984, when he was cast as "The Geek", the scrawny, braces-wearing geek who pursued Molly Ringwald's character in John Hughes's directing debut Sixteen Candles. Hall tried to avoid the clichés of geekiness. "I didn't play him with 100 pens sticking out of his pocket," he said. "I just went in there and played it like a real kid. The geek is just a typical freshman." Hall landed a spot on the promotional materials along with co-star Ringwald. Reviews of the film were positive for Hall and his co-stars, and a review in People even claimed that Hall's performance "pilfer[ed] the film" from Ringwald. Despite achieving only moderate success at the box office, the film made overnight stars of Ringwald and Hall.
In 1985, Hall starred in two additional teen-oriented films written and directed by Hughes. He was cast as Brian Johnson, "the brain", in The Breakfast Club, co-starring Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, and Molly Ringwald. Film critic Janet Maslin praised Hall, stating that the 16-year-old actor and Ringwald were "the movie's standout performers". Hall and fellow co-star Molly Ringwald dated for a short period after filming The Breakfast Club. Later that year, Hall portrayed Gary Wallace, another likable misfit, in Weird Science. Critic Sheila Benson from the Los Angeles Times said Hall was "the role model supreme" for the character, but she also acknowledged that "he [was] outgrowing the role" and "[didn't] need to hold the patent on the bratty bright kid". Weird Science was a moderate success at the box office but was generally well received by critics. Those roles established him as the 1980s' "nerd-of-choice", as well as a member of Hollywood's Brat Pack. Hall, who portrayed Hughes's alter egos in Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Weird Science, credited the director for putting him on the map and giving him those opportunities as a child. "I had the time of my life," he said. "I'd consider [working with Hughes again] any day of the week."
To avoid being typecast, Hall turned down roles written for him by John Hughes in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (Cameron Frye) and Pretty in Pink (Phil "Duckie" Dale), both in 1986. Instead, he starred in the 1986 film Out of Bounds, Hall's first excursion into the thriller and action genre. The film grossed only $5 million domestically and was a critical and financial disappointment. Critic Roger Ebert described Out of Bounds as "an explosion at the cliché factory", and Caryn James from The New York Times claimed that not even "Hall, who made nerds seem lovable in John Hughes' Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club, [couldn't] do much to reconcile" the disparate themes of the movie.
SNL: 1985 Hall joined the cast of Saturday Night Live (SNL) during its 1985–86 season at the age of 17. He was, and remains, the youngest cast member in the show's history. Art Garfunkel, Edd Byrnes, Robert F. Kennedy, and Daryl Hall were among Hall's celebrity impersonations. Hall had admired the show and its stars as a child, but he found the SNL environment to be far more competitive than he had imagined. "My year there, I didn't have any breakout characters and I didn't really do the things I dreamed I would do," he said, "but I still learned a lot and I value that. I'll always be proud of the fact that I was a part of its history." Hall was one of six cast members (the others being Joan Cusack, Robert Downey Jr., Randy Quaid, Terry Sweeney and Danitra Vance) who were dismissed at the end of that season.
Post-Hughes Hall was offered the starring role in the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket in a conversation with Stanley Kubrick, but after an eight-month negotiation, a financial agreement could not be reached. "It was a difficult decision, because in that eight-month period, I read everything I could about the guy, and I was really fascinated by him," Hall said when asked about the film. "I wanted to be a part of that film, but it didn't work out. But all sorts of stories circulated, like I got on set and I was fired, or I was pissed at him for shooting too long. It's all not true." He was replaced with Matthew Modine. His next film was 1988's Johnny Be Good, in which he worked with Uma Thurman and fellow Saturday Night Live cast member Robert Downey Jr. The film was a critical failure, and some reviewers panned Hall's performance as a high school football star, stating that he, the movies' reigning geek, was miscast in the role. A review for The Washington Post claimed that the film was "crass, vulgar, and relentlessly brain-dead".
Hall was considered for the role of Nuke Laloosh in Bull Durham. He was the top choice of Orion Pictures executives, but the actor irritated writer-director Ron Shelton by showing up unprepared for interviews. "I thought Ron was going to shoot him," said producer Mark Burg.
1990s After a two-year break due to a reported drinking problem, Hall returned to acting by starring opposite Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder in Tim Burton's 1990 hit Edward Scissorhands, this time as the film's villain. By then in his 20s, he shifted to more mature roles, trying to establish himself as an adult actor. After Scissorhands, he appeared in a series of low-budget films, including the 1990 film A Gnome Named Gnorm, where he starred as a detective who was forced to team up with a strange looking Gnome, making for a buddy cop movie with mixed reviews. He also was in the 1992 comedy Into the Sun, where he starred as a visiting celebrity at a military air base. Film critic Janet Maslin praised his performance, writing that "Hall, whose earlier performances (in films like National Lampoon's Vacation and Sixteen Candles) have been much goofier, remains coolly funny and graduates to subtler forms of comedy with this role." The following year, he played a gay man who teaches down-and-out Will Smith to dupe rich people in the critically acclaimed film Six Degrees of Separation; Hall claimed that it was "the hardest role [he] ever had".
In 1994, Hall starred in and directed his first feature film, a low-budget Showtime comedy titled Hail Caesar about a would-be rock star who works in a pencil eraser factory. The film also co-starred Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Downey Jr., and Judd Nelson. In addition, he produced the soundtrack for the film with composer Herbie Tribino. The film featured songs written and performed by Hall.
Music Following his family tradition, Hall pursued his other passion of music. He was the lead singer and songwriter for his band, Hall of Mirrors, formed in 1998. The band released an album, Welcome to the Hall of Mirrors, through Hall's own RAM Records label in 1999, with collaborations from former Guns N' Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke and Prince's former keyboard player Tommy Barbarella. It featured songs from his self-directed film Hail Caesar (1994).
Pirates of Silicon Valley After a series of appearances in low-budget films and guest roles on TV series in the mid and late 1990s, he gained media attention once again in the 1999 Emmy-nominated TNT original movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, co-starring Noah Wyle as Apple Computer's Steve Jobs. Hall was widely praised for his portrayal of Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates. "I really fought for this part because I knew it would be the role of a lifetime," Hall said. "It was a thrill and a daunting challenge to play someone of his stature and brilliance." Hall described his physical appearance as 20-year-old Gates to the San Francisco Chronicle:
2000s