A young leading man with the chiseled looks of a Greco-Roman statue, Ryan Phillippe first won attention playing Billy Douglas, the first openly gay male teenager on daytime TV on ABC's "One Life to Live". Moving to Hollywood, he began to chalk up supporting, ensemble, and finally starring roles in TV projects and feature films. Phillippe made his screen debut as a crewman in "Crimson Tide" (1995) and went to be featured as a timid student on board a floating prep school in "White Squall" (1996). Gregg Araki tapped him to play a sex-crazed teen in "Nowhere" and he had one of his first leads as a young man striving for normalcy in a dysfunctional family in "Little Boy Blue" (both 1997). He furthered solidified his rising star status when he landed alongside Jennifer Love Hewitt Sarah Michelle Gellarand Freddie Prinze Jr in the horror thriller "I Know What You Did Last Summer" (also 1997) and co-starred with Billy Bob Thorntonand Kelly Lynch in the drama "Homegrown" (1998). The busy actor had his best role (to date) as a naive bartender who lands in the hedonistic world of disco in "54" (also 1998). The following year, he portrayed a modern-day Valmont in "Cruel Intentions", Roger Kumble's update of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" set among prep school students. In 2001, Phillippe was cast in the Oscar nominated feature, "Godsford Park". He then portrayed Oliver Slocumb in the feature comedy "Igby Goes Down", directed by Burr Steers.

By the time he was beginning to make his mark in features, Phillippe had already chalked up numerous primetime TV credits, including "Secrets of Lake Success" (NBC, 1993) and "Perry Mason: The Case of the Grimacing Governor" (NBC, 1994). He starred in an unsold ABC pilot "Time Well Spent" (1995) and in the 1995 Fox TV-movie "Deadly Invasion: The Killer Be Nightmare". Phillippe also garnered notice for a 1996 guest appearance as a young man with heart problems on an episode of the CBS drama "Chicago Hope".