John Monad
John materialized from the mist of the Tijuana Sloughs one morning. Repeating phrases he picks up around Imperial Beach, he has a disconcerting habit of rambling nonsense in the tone of a message. Tagging along as Butchie’s surf student, John seems to be studying more than waves, approaching every experience as if for the first time. No one knows who he is or where he’s from - Cincinnati sounds as likely a place as any - but from the moment he arrived, random miracles have arisen in town. As it turns out, John’s oddness dovetails well with the Yosts, who are so outlandish themselves that they don’t immediately notice the phenomena unfolding around them.
Austin Nichols Biography
Early life
Austin Nichols was born on April 24, 1980 in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. He was named after Austin, Nichols, the distilling company that makes Wild Turkey Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. His father David Nichols is a radiologist and his mother Kay Nichols is a professional trick water skier. He has one older sister, Ashley.
Austin Nichols was raised in Austin, Texas. In high school he played basketball, but was “absolutely awful”. Instead, Nichols was a competitive water skier, and represented the U.S. Junior Water Ski Team in the Pan-American Championships in 1997. He was also on the Junior U.S. Olympic Water Skiing team. At age thirteen, he was ranked third in the world. He had intended to become a professional water skier until he injured his shoulder in Florida, and was forced to give it up.
He moved to Los Angeles after high school, where he currently lives.
Acting career
Career beginnings
Nichols has stated he wanted to be an actor for much of his life. His acting career began when he gatecrashed a party at the Sundance Film Festival and was promptly signed up by a prominent manager. After his signing, Nichols originally wished to attend the University of Texas, but moved to LA and enrolled at University of Southern California instead, graduating in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Although Nichols had guest starred in Sliders, Odd Man Out, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Family Law, Watching Ellie, and Wolflake even before his graduation, his big break came when he appeared as Brenda Chenowith’s lover in two episodes of Six Feet Under. He had previously appeared in two films, Durango Kids in 1999 and Holiday in the Sun in 2001, both of which were panned by critics.
In his first critically successful film role Nichols starred as a stereotypical basketball-playing “frat boy” in 2003’s The Utopian Society, an independent film directed by John P. Aguirre, which won several awards and some critical acclaim. One critic wrote that in his role, Nichols “transforms himself from a cardboard jock and frat boy caricature to a likeable vulnerable human being with surprising sensibilities.” Aguirre himself commended Nichols as “stellar talent” and able to play his character “with total abandon to self ego”. Following another guest spot in She Spies, Nichols then simultaneously co-starred in two box office successes.
Box office and critical success
In 2004, Nichols was cast as J.D., an intelligent rich kid and romantic rival to Jake Gyllenhaal’s main character in the environmental blockbuster, The Day After Tomorrow. The science and script were panned by critics, who also disapproved of performances by the cast. At the same time, he appeared as Jake Hammond, an arrogant tennis pro in Wimbledon, opposite Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany. The film was well received by critics, though it only did reasonably well at the US box office. For the role, Nichols had to learn tennis from scratch and was trained to look professional by Pat Cash, who was taken aback by Nichols’ stamina, saying “he had worked up to playing four or five hours a day”, as well as being impressed by his talent at tennis, claiming “I’ve never seen anyone going from a double handed backhand to a single in literally five minutes and it looked great.” Nichols himself discovered a new respect for professional tennis players: “I really salute the players that go out there and can do that, they actually perform in front of these people for two or three hours. It’s amazing.”
After this success, Nichols co-starred in a pilot for 1/4 life, a TV series about 20 somethings living in New York, but which was not developed by a television network. He then had a minor role in 2005’s Thanks to Gravity, an obscure and panned film. Nichols followed this with short guest spots for several episodes in both in Pasadena and Surface, before being cast in another successful film, Glory Road.
Glory Road, directed by James Gartner and starring Josh Lucas is a film based on the true story of the 1966 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship, in which Coach Don Haskins led a team with an all-black starting lineup, a first in NCAA history. Nichols played the one of the few white man on the team, for which he trained very heavily and had to master basketball as it was played in the 1960s, saying “I’d never been so sore in my life”. While the film was not a box office hit, it made $46,000,000 receiving positive reviews, though fans were more enthusiastic than the critics.
The House of Usher and beyond
After the success of Glory Road, Nichols appeared in an episode of CSI:Miami, and starred in Lenexa, 1 mile, a film about of five childhood friends during their last summer together in Lenexa before college, who have to deal with disturbing secrets. The creators have not, as of 2006, announced plans to release the film.
Nichols’ latest film is The House of Usher directed by Hayley Cloake and based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe. He plays the disturbed Roderick Usher, who has been described by Nichols as a “twisted, terminally ill, fucked-up guy”. The House of Usher is due to be released in January 2007. Nichols will also be portraying Neal Cassady, along with Will Estes as Jack Kerouac, in an upcoming short film Luz Del Mundo.
In April 2006, Nichols signed a rare holding deal with the HBO Network.[18] Nichols had previously guest starred in Deadwood, a HBO Western series. In August of that year, Nichols was cast as the lead in new series John From Cincinnati, a surfing drama created by David Milch, who had also produced Deadwood. The series was picked up by HBO to air in the Summer of 2007.[19] Nichols has however said about Milch that although he has “incredible respect for him” at the same time Nichols feels “anger for him, he is so creative and brilliant but also so demanding”[20]
Personal life
Besides his acting career, Nichols maintains a strong interest in film. He keeps a film log for every film he sees, saying “I take it to the movies and write down who does the music, edits, directs, and how long the film is.” According to an interview in 2003 with Claire Oswalt, an ex-girlfriend, Nichols watches an average of 20 movies a week. He especially admires Hal Ashby, Sam Fuller, and John Ford. In addition to his interest in film, Nichols also enjoys golf, tennis, and horseback riding.
Nichols dated artist Claire Oswalt for seven years, before breaking off their engagement in 2004. The breakup was apparently bitter; he has mentioned in an interview he was living out of his car and sleeping on friends’ couches for some time afterwards.
Nichols has been close friends with fellow actor Jake Gyllenhaal since the two met on the set of The Day After Tomorrow in 2004. Nichols said in one interview, “I’ve learned a ton from Jake. He’s a really sharp guy. He told me everything about acting, the business, girls, life.”