Skyler Gisondo's Real Name: Skyler Gisondo

Quick answer: Skyler Gisondo is known professionally and in reference works as Skyler Gisondo. He is an American actor who grew up in southern Florida and later Los Angeles and became widely known for Vacation, Booksmart, and The Righteous Gemstones (GQ).

Real name and early life

The Library of Congress heading is "Gisondo, Skyler." An IMDb-based Library of Congress citation gives a July 1996 birth date and a Palm Beach, Florida, birthplace; because those details are not independently confirmed in the profile used here, they are omitted from the title. A December 2019 GQ interview describes him as 23, which is consistent with a mid-1990s birth, and says he was born in southern Florida. When he was six, his family vacationed in Los Angeles and liked it enough to stay. A movie-obsessed child, he "constantly, incessantly" asked his parents to let him act, GQ says. He booked a pizza commercial, then small television parts. His parents worked in ocean engineering, not show business, and he has described the childhood as feeling normal, with youth sports and camp alongside the early jobs.

Career highlights

GQ says he accumulated more than 40 acting credits before he was old enough to vote, including Miss Match, Huff, Everybody Loves Raymond, Monk, Walk Hard, and Four Christmases. In 2014 he played Ben Stiller's rebellious offspring in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb; he has recalled Robin Williams praising his work when that film wrapped, when Gisondo was 17. It was, he told GQ, the first time someone he admired had sincerely affirmed the career he had chosen at six. The following year he played Ed Helms's dorky older child in the Vacation remake, a turn that later put him on Danny McBride's radar.

In 2019 he had breakout roles as Jared, a goofily exuberant outcast, in Booksmart, directed by Olivia Wilde, and as the moral center of the HBO series The Righteous Gemstones, opposite Danny McBride. Wilde told GQ that Gisondo brought a "real sweetness" to Jared that other actors had missed in auditions. GQ also notes work in the Netflix series Santa Clarita Diet. Those 2014–19 credits are the ones most searchers associate with his name.

Name notes for searchers

Skyler Gisondo is the name used in GQ and in the Library of Congress heading. Searchers looking for Jared in Booksmart or the Vacation remake are usually aiming at the same person.