Cris Lankenau (born June 24, 1981) is an
American actor.
Biography
Cris Lankenau was born in
Miami, Florida
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
and grew up in
Orlando
Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures re ...
and
Boca Raton, Florida. He currently resides in
Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
.
Career
After leaving high school in Boca Raton, Lankenau moved to New York and joined with the growing creative community centered in
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Williamsburg is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordered by Greenpoint to the north; Bedford–Stuyvesant to the south; Bushwick and East Williamsburg to the east; and the East River to the west. As of the 2020 United ...
working as a DJ and writing occasionally for
Vice magazine
''Vice'' (stylized in all caps) is a Canadian-American magazine focused on lifestyle, arts, culture, and news/politics. Founded in 1994 in Montreal as an alternative punk magazine, the founders later launched the youth media company Vice Media, ...
. He soon met filmmakers
Aaron Katz and Brendan McFadden and was cast as the lead in Katz’ second feature film, ''
Quiet City''. Lankenau and co-star Erin Fisher wrote much of their own dialogue for the movie and according to director Katz: "I had a full 120-page script, but when it came time to shoot it, everything was in the actors' own words. The structure compares to the script scene by scene, but the things that happen in each scene happened through the actors. A lot of times, things would happen in the first take that would be unexpected, and we would talk about how to incorporate them into the scene." Both Lankenau and Fisher received a writing credit on the film and for improvising the music for the closing credits. The film was well received by critics and was nominated for a John Cassavetes Award at the
2007 Independent Spirit Awards.
Lankenau worked with Katz again as the lead in his 2010 mystery, ''
Cold Weather Cold weather may refer to:
*Cold wave, a weather phenomenon distinguished by cooling of the air
*''Cold Weather'', a 2010 American mystery film
{{dab ...
'' playing Doug, the aimless,
Sherlock Holmes obsessed brother to
Trieste Kelly Dunn’s character Gail. As with ''Quiet City'', director Katz encouraged the two leads to improvise dialogue and even went so far as to arrange “brother and sister dates” for the actors so they could bond and develop a more natural and authentic sibling relationship on screen. The film received positive reviews and of Lankenau and co-star
Raúl Castillo,
Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago ...
critic
Roger Ebert wrote: “Cris Lankenau and Raúl Castillo as Doug and Carlos do a very difficult thing here, which is to play young male friends without the slightest shadow of Buddy Movie Syndrome.”
He has most recently starred in two short films: ''Benny to Benny'' and ''Toothbrush''.
Filmography
See also
*
List of people from Miami
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lankenau, Cris
Living people
American male film actors
Male actors from Miami
1981 births