After dropping out of high school in 1979, the actor joined the band The Kids and moved to Los Angeles.
Teen idol
“I started acting by accident,” he admitted.
His longtime friend, renowned actor Nicolas Cage, suggested contacting his agent, which eventually led to auditions with a renowned director.“Somehow I managed to get a role in ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street,’” he recalled.
In the 1990s, he became a teen idol and a star—but one of the few actors to openly reject traditional expectations of that role. He defied this image and, through his film choices and public image, began to forge a new, more unconventional identity in Hollywood.
