Ben Foster

Ben Foster has built a career around characters who rarely seem settled. Whether playing an outlaw, a troubled brother or a real-life figure, he brings a tightly wound quality to the screen—the sense that something difficult is happening just beneath the surface. That intensity has carried him across film, television and theatre without fixing him to a single kind of role. Born in Boston on October 29, 1980, Foster began acting at 14 after studying theatre at Interlochen Arts Camp. His early television work included a starring role in the Disney Channel series Flash Forward from 1995 to 1997, followed by a recurring part as Russell Corwin in HBO’s Six Feet Under. His first major film role came in Barry Levinson’s Liberty Heights, and subsequent appearances in Get Over It, 11:14, The Punisher and Hostage showed a willingness to move between comedy, crime stories and action films. Foster’s range became especially visible in 2006. He played Angel, also known as Warren Worthington III, in X-Men: The Last Stand, then took on the volatile Jake Mazursky in Alpha Dog. A year later, he played cold-blooded outlaw Charlie Prince in 3:10 to Yuma. That ability to make dangerous characters feel specific rather than merely threatening also shaped his performance as Tanner Howard in Hell or High Water, opposite Chris Pine and Jeff Bridges. His screen work has continued to alternate between large-scale productions and grounded dramas. He played Lance Armstrong in The Program, appeared in the fantasy adventure Warcraft and reunited with Levinson for The Survivor in 2021. Foster has also worked onstage, making his theatre debut in Orphans before appearing in A Streetcar Named Desire in London and New York. In 2025, he portrayed James V. Martin in the Christy Martin biopic Christy. He is also set to play Evel Knievel in The Stunt Driver—a role that fits a career repeatedly drawn to risk, pressure and complicated men.