Peter Winkler Berg Bio/Wiki, Net Worth, Married 2018
Peter Berg is an American actor, director, writer, and producer. His first role was in the Adam Rifkin road movie Never on Tuesday (1989). He went on to star in the Word War 2 film A Midnight Clear (1992). Roles in Fire in the Sky (1993) and Cop Land (1997) followed, and the Tom Cruise films Collateral (2004) and Lions for Lambs (2007). Peter has ...
[re beginnings in college theater] It was a family thing, and there were hot girls...For some reason I fit in. I'm not sure why. I guess I was intrigued as much by misfits as by heroes...I love actors. I'm empathetic to them. I understand what they go through. But I didn't want to be an actor.
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[re 'Battleship (2012)] I couldn't say no to that challenge. I felt I had a new understanding of what went into making a blockbuster. I got a taste of a film's global power. But I discounted the effect of Will Smith on _Hancock (20100_'s success. I thought I could pull off Battleship (2012) without a big star...[Though] the perception wasn't that Peter Berg screwed up.Where do you go to buy back your reputation when you lose it?
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[re making Lone Survivor (2013)] I'm a patriot. I admire our military, their character, code of honor, belief systems. I lived with the SEALs, their families, went to their funerals. I went to Iraq. Did you ever see anyone killed? I did.
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[re his prep school years, and learning to box] I was on fire,a seething ball of energy moving at a speed I couldn't explain...and diagnosed as a troublemaker. Today it'd be A.D.H.D., and I'd be Ritalined up...You can't box angry. You have to be disciplined. Before boxing, I was this angry kid ready to fight if someone said, 'Hello.'
Peter is a fifth cousin, three times removed, of theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, through Peter's maternal grandfather, Robert Eli Winkler. Peter's seven times maternal great-grandfather, Moyses Einstein, was also Albert's four times paternal great-grandfather.
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His paternal grandparents were from Russian Jewish immigrant families. His maternal grandfather was of German Jewish and Austrian Jewish descent.
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Has a director's cameo in Lone Survivor (2013) (before Shane Patton's speech).
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Berg remembers his father as 'a hard-assed ex-Marine" and who later became an executive for Grey Advertising, commuting to New York City and drinking martins at lunch-- the very model of a Mad Men (2007) -type character.
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Still works out by boxing which he's loved since he was a 14-year-old freshman at Connecticut's private Taft School.
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He was embedded with SEAL Team Five for nearly a month in March 2009 while preparing to make his upcoming movie, Lone Survivor (2013), based on the book by Marcus Luttrell. Embedded journalists typically live with military units while covering armed conflicts.
Has a son, Emmett Berg (born in November 1999), with ex-wife, Elizabeth Rogers.
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Visited Saudi Arabia for two weeks in research for The Kingdom (2007).
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Guest Speaker at Macalester College Commencement Ceremony for the Class of 2008.
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His mother co-founded a youth group named "Catalog for Giving" and worked at a psychiatric hospital, when Berg and his younger sister, Mary Berg, were growing up.
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Guest-starred in a two part Alias (2001), episode where he played Jennifer Garner's ex-boyfriend. Based on this experience, he decided to cast and direct her in The Kingdom (2007).
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One of 115 people invited to join AMPAS in 2007.
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His best friend and roommate from Macalester College, is his agent, Ari Emanuel, inspiration for Entourage (2004)'s "Ari Gold".
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He and three others were ambushed and robbed in the Brazilian jungle while doing research for The Rundown (2003). They were held for 15 minutes and lost cash and a laptop computer. Nobody was injured.
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Attended the Guthrie Theater Drama School, Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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Moved to Los Angeles in 1985.
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Appeared in local theater productions while attending college in Minnesota.
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Is a second cousin of writer Buzz Bissinger, who wrote the book Friday Night Lights (Peter later directed the film based on the book). Buzz's paternal grandmother, Gertrude Louise Winkler, and Peter's maternal grandfather, Robert Eli Winkler, were siblings.
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Peter grew up in Chappaqua, New York and attended a private high school in Watertown, Connecticut.
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Worked as Domino's delivery boy while at Macalaster.
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Attended Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.
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Worked as a dock worker in San Pedro, California prior to getting his "big break".