Liv Rundgren Tyler (born July 1, 1977) is an American actress and model. She is the daughter of
Aerosmith's lead singer,
Steven Tyler, and
Bebe Buell, model and singer. Tyler began a career in modeling at the age of 14, but after less than a year she decided to focus on acting. She made her film debut in the 1994 film
Silent Fall. She then appeared in supporting roles in
Empire Records (1995),
Heavy (1996), and
That Thing You Do! (1996). Tyler later achieved critical recognition in the leading role
Stealing Beauty (1996). She followed this by starring in supporting roles including
Inventing the Abbotts (1997) and
Cookie's Fortune (1999).
Tyler achieved international recognition as a result of her portrayal of Elf maiden
Arwen Undómiel in the
The Lord of the Rings films. She has appeared in an eclectic range of films, including the 2004 comedy
Jersey Girl, the
indie film
Lonesome Jim (2005), the drama
Reign Over Me (2007) and big-budget studio films such as
Armageddon (1998),
The Strangers (2008) and
The Incredible Hulk (2008).
Since 2003, Tyler has served as a
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
Goodwill Ambassador for the United States, and as a spokesperson for
Givenchy's line of perfume and cosmetics. Tyler married musician Royston Langdon of the band
Spacehog in 2003; they have one son, Milo, born December 14, 2004. The couple announced their separation in May 2008.
Early life
Tyler was born Liv Rundgren
at
Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, New York.
She is the first-born daughter of
Bebe Buell, a model, singer, and former Playboy Playmate (Miss November 1974), and
Steven Tyler, the lead singer of
Aerosmith.
Her mother named her after Norwegian actress
Liv Ullmann after seeing Ullmann on the cover of the March 5, 1977, issue of
TV Guide.
She has three half-siblings:
Mia Tyler (born 1978),
Chelsea Anna Tallarico (born 1989), and Taj Monroe Tallarico (born 1992). Her maternal grandmother, Dorothea Johnson, founded the Protocol School of Washington.
At birth, Buell claimed that rock star
Todd Rundgren was Tyler's biological father.
Tyler discovered her true parentage at age nine.
She discovered that she was Steven Tyler's daughter after meeting him and noticing a resemblance she shared with his other daughter, Mia.
When she asked her mother about the similarity, the secret was revealed.
The truth about Tyler's paternity did not become public until five years later, in 1991, when she changed her name from Rundgren to Tyler, but kept the former as a middle name.
Buell's alleged reason for the initial decision was that Steven was too heavily addicted to drugs at the time of her birth.
Since learning the truth about her paternity, Liv and Steven have developed a close relationship.
They have also worked together professionally, once when she appeared in Aerosmith's
music video for "
Crazy" in 1993 and again when Aerosmith performed many of the songs in the film
Armageddon (1998), in which Tyler starred.
Tyler attended the Congressional School of Virginia,
Breakwater School and
Waynflete School in
Portland, Maine,
before returning to New York City with her mother at the age of 12.
She went to
York Preparatory in New York City for junior high and high school, after her mother researched the school to accommodate Tyler's
attention-deficit disorder.
She graduated in 1995 and left to continue her acting career.
When asked about the way she spent her early life, Tyler said: "For me, I didn’t get much of a childhood in my teen years because I’ve been working since I was 14. But that also kept me out of trouble. When everybody was doing acid and partying like crazy, I was at work on a movie in Tuscany ... having my own fun, of course, but it was a different kind of thing. I have no regrets. I love the way my life has gone."
Career
Early work
At the age of 14, Tyler received her first modeling job with assistance of
Paulina Porizkova who took photos of her that ended up in
Interview magazine.
She later starred in
television commercials.
However, she became bored with her modeling career less than a year after it started, and decided to go into acting.
She never took acting lessons.
Tyler first became known to television audiences when she starred alongside
Alicia Silverstone in the music video for
Aerosmith's 1993 song "
Crazy".
Tyler made her feature film debut in
Silent Fall in 1994, where she played the older sister of an autistic boy. In 1995, she starred in the comedy drama
Empire Records. Tyler has described
Empire Records as "one of the best experiences" she has ever had.
Soon after, she landed a supporting role in
James Mangold's 1996 drama
Heavy as Callie, a naive young waitress. The film received favorable reviews; critic
Janet Maslin noted: "Ms. Tyler ... gives a charmingly ingenuous performance, betraying no self-consciousness about her lush good looks."
Critical success
The breakthrough role in Tyler's career came in
Stealing Beauty (1996), in which she played Lucy Harmon, an innocent, romantic teenager who travels to Italy intent on losing her virginity. The film received generally mixed reviews, but every film critic complimented Tyler's performance;
Variety wrote: "Tyler is the perfect accomplice. At times sweetly awkward, at others composed and serene, the actress appears to respond effortlessly and intuitively to the camera, creating a rich sense of what Lucy is about that often is not explicit in the dialogue."
Empire noted, "Liv Tyler (here radiantly resembling a ganglier young
Ava Gardner) with a rare opportunity to enamour, a break she capitalises on with composure." The film was directed by
Bernardo Bertolucci. Bertolucci chose Tyler for the role after meeting with a number of young girls in Los Angeles, including Tyler's music video co-star
Alicia Silverstone. But Bertolucci claimed "there was something missing in all of them".
He later admitted that what he saw in Tyler was a
gravitas he described as "a New York aura".
During promotion of the film, Tyler admitted she wanted to separate herself from the character during production; "I tried my damnedest not to think of my own situation. But at one point, after a take, I just started to cry and cry. I remembered when I found out about my dad and how we just stared at each other from head to toe taking in every nook and cranny."
She later appeared in
That Thing You Do! (1996), a movie about the story of a fictional
one-hit wonder rock band called The Wonders, following their whirlwind rise to the top of the pop charts, and just as quickly, their plunge back to obscurity. The film was written and directed by
Tom Hanks. It grossed over $25 million worldwide,
and was met with favorable reviews. The following year, she appeared in
Inventing the Abbotts in 1997, in which she played Pamela the daughter of
Will Patton and
Barbara Williams' characters. The movie is based on a short story by
Sue Miller.
Entertainment Weekly declared Tyler's performance as "lovely and pliant". That same year, Tyler was chosen by
People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People.
Tyler next appeared in
Armageddon (1998), where she played the daughter of
Bruce Willis' character and love interest of
Ben Affleck's character. The film generated mostly critical reviews, but was a box office success earning $553 million worldwide.
The movie included the songs "
I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" and "
What Kind of Love Are You On" by Aerosmith. In a 2001 interview with
The Guardian, she admitted that she turned down the role in
Armageddon; "I really didn't want to do it at first and I turned it down a couple of times, but the biggest reason I changed my mind was because I was scared of it. I wanted to try it for that very reason. I mean, I'm not really in this to do amazing things in my career - I just want it to be special when I make a movie."
She was then cast in the drama
Onegin (1999), a film based on the 19th century Russian
novel by
Alexander Pushkin, in which she portrayed Tatyana Larina and co-starred with
Ralph Fiennes.
Tyler was required to master an English accent, though
Stephen Holden of the
New York Times felt that her approximation of an English accent was "inert".
The film was critically and financially unsuccessful.
That same year, she appeared in the historical comedy film
Plunkett & Macleane.
She later appeared in two films directed by
Robert Altman,
Cookie's Fortune (1999) and
Dr. T & the Women (2000).
In
Cookie's Fortune, she was part of an ensemble cast that included
Glenn Close,
Julianne Moore,
Chris O'Donnell, and
Patricia Neal. Her performance well received amongst critics;
Salon.com wrote: "This is the first time in which Tyler's acting is a match for her beauty (she's always been a bit forlorn). Altman helps her find some snap, but a relaxed, silly snap, as in the cartoon sound she makes when she takes a midday swig of bourbon. The lazy geniality of the movie is summed up by the way Emma [Tyler's character] saunters off to take a swim with her cowboy hat and pint of Wild Turkey."
Entertainment Weekly also noted that Tyler is "sweetly gruff as the tomboy troublemaker". In the romantic comedy,
Dr. T & the Women, she played Marilyn, a gynecologist patient of
Richard Gere's character, who is the
lesbian lover of his daughter, played by
Kate Hudson.
In 2001, Tyler played the object of infatuation for three men (
Matt Dillon,
John Goodman and
Paul Reiser) in the black comedy
One Night at McCool's. In discussion of the role, she said: "This was definitely the first part where I had to be so physically aware and have people so aware of me physically. Maybe it's not hard for anybody else, but it is a bit for me. I mean I love my body and I feel very comfortable in my skin, but this was tough."
of
Rolling Stone wrote: "Tyler, a true beauty, gives the role a valiant try, but her range is too limited to play this amalgam of female perfection."
Worldwide recognition
2001 marked a significant turning point in Tyler's career, when she starred in the feature film
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, directed by
Peter Jackson. She depicted the elf princess
Arwen Undómiel.
The film is based on the similarly titled
first volume of
J. R. R. Tolkien's
The Lord of the Rings. The filmmakers approached Tyler after seeing her performance in
Plunkett & Macleane. She learned to speak the fictitious Elvish language that was created by Tolkien. The film broke records for opening-day sales and opening weekend takings and was the second highest-grossing film of 2001.
Mick LaSalle of the
San Francisco Chronicle noted that Tyler's performance was "lovely and earnest".
thumb|left|Tyler and co-star [[Sean Astin at the premiere of
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2003]]
A year later, Tyler again starred as Arwen in
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the second installment of the series. The film, like the first, received favorable reviews. Tyler spent months before filming learning swordfighting, to be used during the concluding battle scenes in
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,
though her scenes from the battle were removed after the script was changed.
The film was an enormous box office success, earning over $926 million worldwide, out grossing its predecessor, which earned over $871 million.
In 2003, the third and last installment of the series,
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, was released and became the second-highest grossing film, unadjusted for inflation, of all time, making
The Lord of the Rings series the
fourth highest grossing film series in history.
Following the success of
The Lord of the Rings, she appeared opposite her
Armageddon co-star Ben Affleck in writer-director
Kevin Smith's romantic comedy
Jersey Girl (2004), playing a woman who re-opens a widowed father's heart to love, played by Affleck.
In an interview with
MTV News, Tyler confessed that she felt "scared and vulnerable" while filming
Jersey Girl, adding "I was so used to those other elements of the character [Arwen]. On
The Lord of the Rings, a lot of things were done in post-production, whereas this was really just about me and Ben sitting there, just shooting off dialogue."
However, she reiterated that doing
Jersey Girl was what she wanted to do.
In 2005 she appeared in
Steve Buscemi's independent drama
Lonesome Jim, where she was cast alongside
Casey Affleck, as a single mother and nurse who reconnects with an old fling who has returned to their small town of Indiana after a failed run as a novelist in New York.
The film was screened at a special presentation at the 2005
Sundance Film Festival where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. Tyler's next appearance in film was in a supporting role as an insightful therapist who tries to help a once-successful dentist (
Adam Sandler) cope with the loss of his family during the events of the
September 11th attacks in
Reign Over Me (2007).
In 2008 she starred in the horror-thriller
The Strangers with
Scott Speedman, a film about a young couple who are terrorized one night by three masked assailants in their remote country house. Although the film garnered a mixed reception among critics, it was a box office success.
In an interview with
Entertainment Weekly, she noted that
The Strangers was the most challenging role of her career. "It was as far as I could push myself in every way: physically, emotionally, mentally."
She appeared in
The Incredible Hulk (2008), in which she played
Dr. Betty Ross, the love interest of the title-character, played by
Edward Norton. Tyler was attracted to the love story in the script, and was a fan of the
television show. She said filming the part was "very physical, which was fun", and compared her performance to "a deer caught in the headlights".
was a box office success, earning over $262 million worldwide.
, in review of the film, wrote: "Tyler gives Betty an appropriately angelic nimbus of ethereal gentleness as the one Beauty who can tame the Beast ... during their most pivotal encounters."
Personal life
Tyler dated actor
Joaquin Phoenix from 1995 to November 1998; the couple met on the set of
Inventing the Abbotts.
In 1998, she began dating British musician
Royston Langdon of the band
Spacehog.
Tyler and Langdon became engaged in February 2001, and got married in
Barbados on March 25, 2003. On December 14, 2004, she gave birth to a son, Milo William Langdon. On May 8, 2008, the couple confirmed through representatives that they would be separating but remain friends. In an interview with
The Daily Telegraph, Tyler revealed that her separation from Langdon led her to move to Los Angeles part time, explaining that it was hard to be in the New York home they shared.
Tyler is an active supporter of the charitable
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). She was appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United States in 2003.
In November 2004, she hosted the lighting of the UNICEF Snowflake in New York City.
Tyler also served as spokesperson for the 2004
Givenchy Mother's Day promotion, in support of UNICEF's Maternal & Neonatal Tetanus (MNT) campaign.
Since 2004, she has donated to the Women's Cancer Research Fund to support innovative research, education, and outreach directed at the development of more effective approaches to the early diagnosis, treatment and prevention of all women's cancers. In October 2007, Tyler, along with her mother, Bebe Buell and her grandmother, Dorothea Johnson, helped launch the
Emergen-C Pink energy drink, in which the event was in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month.
She is good friends with designer
Stella McCartney,
model
Helena Christensen and actresses
Kate Hudson and
Gwyneth Paltrow.
Tyler has also stated that she is a
vegan. In 2003, she became the spokesperson for
Givenchy perfume and cosmetics; in 2005 the brand named a rose after her, which was used in one of its fragrances. In 2009, Tyler signed on for two more years as Givenchy spokesperson.
Filmography
