Peter Sarsgaard's Real Name: Peter Sarsgaard

Quick answer: Peter Sarsgaard is credited under the name Peter Sarsgaard. He was born on March 7, 1971, at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. A versatile character actor, he broke through in Boys Don't Cry (1999) and won best actor at the 2023 Venice Film Festival for Memory. He is married to actor-director Maggie Gyllenhaal (Encyclopedia.com; France 24/AFP).

Real name and early life

The Library of Congress name authority files him as "Sarsgaard, Peter," and one of its sources records that he was "born March 7, 1971, Belleville, Illinois, USA." The Encyclopedia.com profile, from Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television, gives his birthplace as Scott Air Force Base, near Belleville. Some fan and wiki sites add the first name "John." The LOC and Encyclopedia.com records cited here do not confirm it, so this page uses the name he is credited under.

Encyclopedia.com says he studied history and literature at Washington University in St. Louis. There he co-founded an improvisational comedy group called Mama's Pot Roast. He later trained at the Actors Studio in New York and became a founding company member of the Drama Department theater group. One early HBO credit, in Subway Stories (1997), spelled his name "Peter Scarsgaard."

Career highlights

AFP reported that Sarsgaard first drew wide attention with his intense performance as John Lotter in Boys Don't Cry (1999). He became known for key supporting roles. His work in Shattered Glass (2003) won him the National Society of Film Critics award for best supporting actor and a Golden Globe nomination. He followed with Garden State (2004), Kinsey (2004), Jarhead (2005), and An Education (2009), which brought another Golden Globe nomination.

His films include K-19: The Widowmaker, Knight and Day, Blue Jasmine, Night Moves, The Magnificent Seven, and The Batman (2022). On television he appeared in The Killing, The Looming Tower, and Dopesick, which earned him an Emmy nomination.

In September 2023 he won the Volpi Cup for best actor in Venice for playing a man with dementia opposite Jessica Chastain in Michel Franco's Memory. He dedicated the award to an uncle who had recently died of the disease. In his speech he backed the Hollywood strikes, warning about artificial intelligence. AFP also noted that he acted in his wife's directing debut, The Lost Daughter.

Name notes for searchers

Sarsgaard is his family surname, and he has used it throughout his career; one early TV credit misspelled it Scarsgaard. Maggie Gyllenhaal has said she learned her own legal first name, Margalit, while preparing to take his surname.