Shane West

Shane West (born Shannon Bruce Snaith; June 10, 1978) is an American actor, punk rock musician and songwriter. West is best known for portraying Eli Sammler in Once and Again, Landon Carter in A Walk to Remember, Darby Crash in What We Do Is Secret, and Dr. Ray Barnett in ER. He is currently portraying the role of Michael in The CW action drama television series Nikita. Aside from acting, West has performed with punk rock band The Germs. --- Shane West was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the son of Leah Catherine (née Launey) and Don Snaith. His mother is a lawyer; his father, who was born in Jamaica is a drugstore owner. Both parents were musicians and had their own punk bands. He is of Cajun French descent through his mother. He is the eldest of three children with a sister Simone and a half-sister Marli Ann. His parents divorced in 1982 when he was four. Influenced by his parents, he grew up listening to The Clash, The Jam, Blondie, Elvis Costello, and The Kinks. He revealed: "I always thought I would be doing music rather than acting." At the age of ten, West moved to Compton, California with Simone and his mother because she was looking for a better job and they then moved to Norwalk, California. When he was 15-16, West moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career where he struggled for two years and lived at his manager's house. West made his acting debut in 1995 with the television series, Picket Fences. In 1998, West guest-starred in several TV series including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and played Mark Tapper in the stage production of The Cider House Rules before landing his first major role in 1999 in the television series, Once and Again, playing Eli Sammler for three seasons. West's film debut was in Liberty Heights, a film about a Jewish family in Baltimore directed by Barry Levinson's film . He also co-starred in the teen comedies Whatever It Takes (2000) and Get Over It (2001). West was subsequently cast as Landon Carter opposite singer and actress Mandy Moore in 2002's adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' novel A Walk to Remember, which was a modest box office success, grossing over $41 million in the United States. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times found him "quietly convincing". His performance in the film earned him a Teen Choice Award for Choice Chemistry with Moore. He also appeared in the Mandy Moore music video "Cry". That year, West won the Young Hollywood Award Male Superstar of Tomorrow. --- He was the lead singer of the punk rock band Jonny Was for "seven or eight years", which was previously known as Average Joe. The band had to change their name for legal matters. The band contributed to the A Walk to Remember soundtrack but appears under the names of "West, Gould, and Fitzgerald" because they had not decided yet the new name. He described their style as "a pop-punk type band, more Green Day-ish".