MATTHEW SETTLE

 At age 19 Matthew Settle moved to New York City and joined a rock band. He decided to become an actor when his inability play a musical instrument led him to rethink the direction of his career. After numerous drama classes, unsuccessful pilots and TV films, the Johnny-comes-lately to the film business was finally capable of landing his first major role in I Still Know What You Did Last summer (1998). Settle was nearly 29 years old. Settle was born in Hickory (NC) on September 17, 1969. In 1983 Settle's father, an ordained Baptist preacher, as well as his mother, who is a church organist, relocated the family to Sevierville, TN. Settle made a living selling records at Dolly Parton's local theme park, Dollywood and then decided to become a musician himself. After being kicked out of the New York-based group in the early 1990s, he sold meat and seafood off the back of a truck in Long Island before Jay Julian Robert De Niro's lawyer and acting coach, enrolled him in school. Settle took money from his friends to fund the tuition after which he moved to Los Angeles to begin his career.Settle made his screen debut with Sarah Paulson as an Irish-American settler in the 1996 CBS pilot Shaughnesy. He was later cast as a frat boy in the film of the week What Happened to Bobby Earl? (1997), Kate Jackson and Kristian alfonso. He plays a small part in the television movie Murder in Mind (1997), with Ellen Burstyn, Kristin Davis.