ACTOR
Bruce Greenwood
38 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (38)
- #001
Bruce Greenwood first dated his wife when they were both 15, around 1971. He has been married since 1985 and has known his wife since the early 1970s.
- #002
As a child, Bruce Greenwood rarely watched television because the TV was tied to his report card, and he would save up half hours during the week to watch ABC's Wide World of Sports (1961) on weekends. He dislikes scary films and, as a child, was even afraid of the monkeys in The Wizard of Oz (1939).
- #003
Bruce Greenwood finished high school in Zurich, Switzerland, where his family lived for 13 months while his father did research. He later lived on his own, exploring the European ski circuit. He planned to become a professional skier until he injured his knee at 16, which led to six operations on his right knee in total, the last in early 1997. He always wears a brace on his right knee for skiing and other sports. During two seasons of St. Elsewhere (1982), he took part in celebrity ski tournaments.
- #004
Bruce Greenwood played President John F. Kennedy in Thirteen Days (2000) and unnamed fictional Presidents in National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007) and Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017).
- #005
Bruce Greenwood is an avid outdoorsman who skis, skydives, sails and hikes.
- #006
Bruce Greenwood is an avid musician and relaxes by singing and playing his electric guitar.
- #007
Bruce Greenwood quit smoking after the pilot of Nowhere Man (1995).
- #008
Bruce Greenwood attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA) in New York City for a full year (1980-81). He lived on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village and used a skateboard for transportation.
- #009
Bruce Greenwood likes to embellish his speech with sound effects and foreign accents.
- #010
Bruce Greenwood first became interested in acting when he saw Brad Dourif play Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). He made his stage debut in a theatre production at UBC as an actor swinging on stage Tarzan-style. He began his professional acting career in theatre in Vancouver and did not firmly decide to act until his first professional play.
- #011
Bruce Greenwood lost a front tooth in a fight several years ago and cheerfully had it removed for his role in The Sweet Hereafter (1997).
- #012
Bruce Greenwood began doing talking books, drawing on his passion for dialects.
- #013
Bruce Greenwood made his screen debut in the pilot episode of the HBO series The Hitchhiker (1983). He came to Los Angeles to dub The Hitchhiker (1983), where he "conditionally" got his first manager and landed the lead in Legmen (1984) — all within a week. He auditioned for the lead in Falconer (1984) but was told he was too young for the role.
- #014
Bruce Greenwood initially turned down his breakthrough role in St. Elsewhere (1982) because he was shooting Another Chance (1988), but he managed to work on both jobs simultaneously for several weeks.
- #015
Bruce Greenwood appeared in two films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Capote (2005) and The Post (2017).
- #016
Bruce Greenwood broke his wrist while in the mountains of Pakistan shooting The Climb (1986).
- #017
Bruce Greenwood broke his leg during a dance routine with the touring company of "Cruel Tears." Three days after the cast's departure, the same leg was damaged in a motorcycle accident, which left him on crutches for another eight months.
- #018
Bruce Greenwood's parents are Mary Sylvia (Ledingham), a nurse, and Hugh John Greenwood, a geophysicist, geologist and professor who taught at Princeton University. His father's great-grandfather was Ralph Allan Sampson, a noted Cork-born astronomer who served as Astronomer Royal for Scotland.
- #019
Growing up, Bruce Greenwood had the nickname "Greendog."
- #020
Bruce Greenwood mostly grew up in Vancouver, where his family moved when he was 11. He attended Magee Secondary School in Vancouver's Kerrisdale area. He attended the University of British Columbia for three years, where his father was head of the Department of Geology and his mother was a nurse in a long-term care unit. Greenwood never lived in one place for more than four years. He studied philosophy and economics at UBC and took his first drama class only for an easy credit.
- #021
Bruce Greenwood originally had 12 lines in Sylvester Stallone's First Blood (1982), and although his speaking role was cut down to a walk-on, he was still credited.
- #022
Bruce Greenwood was born in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, because his Vancouver-born father was working there on a mining project at the time. Greenwood spent the first three years of his life in Princeton, New Jersey, where his father was earning his postgraduate degrees, the next three years in Washington, D.C., and Maryland, and the following three years back in Princeton.
- #023
When Bruce Greenwood unexpectedly landed his first film role in Bear Island (1979), he was supporting his theatre career by working in a chemical plant.
- #024
Bruce Greenwood owns the tuxedo he wore in Harlequin: Treacherous Beauties (1994).
- #025
Bruce Greenwood once worked as a diamond driller in the Northwest Territories to earn money to study at the London Central School of Speech and Drama. A year before graduating, he dropped out of university, visited Greece and worked on a sailing boat, still his favourite job; the following year he bought a motorcycle to travel across the United States.
- #026
For Nowhere Man (1995), Bruce Greenwood filmed a public service message for Northwest Health Teams about the situation of Romanian orphans.
- #027
Bruce Greenwood was working on a drilling crew in Northern Alberta when a director called him about a role in the musical "Cruel Tears."
- #028
Bruce Greenwood auditioned for the roles of Dr. Jeffrey Geiger in Chicago Hope (1994) and Mike Ryan in Almost Perfect (1995).
- #029
Bruce Greenwood won the Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Guest Role for his performance as Caleb Stokes in Avonlea (1990) (1995). He was also nominated for a Gemini for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for his role as Dr. Willem Hooft in The Little Kidnappers (1990) (1990).
- #030
Bruce Greenwood was in elementary school in Bethesda, Maryland, during the Cuban Missile Crisis and vividly remembers the preparations for a possible war.
- #031
During his year on Nowhere Man (1995), Bruce Greenwood became an avid golfer and occasionally takes part in celebrity tournaments.
- #032
Bruce Greenwood performed as a life-sized puppet in the first children's shows of his best friend, Norman Foote.
- #033
After moving to Los Angeles, Bruce Greenwood lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Laurel Canyon and drove a 1972 Toyota truck. For many years after moving to Los Angeles, he did not own a working television set.
- #034
Bruce Greenwood has two younger sisters: Kelly, a nurse, and Lynn, a mother and an activist.
- #035
Bruce Greenwood auditioned for a major role in the horror film Psycho II (1983).
- #036
Bruce Greenwood is a graduate of AADA (the American Academy of Dramatic Arts), class of 1981.
- #037
Bruce Greenwood had a one-year contract with Warner Brothers to make a television pilot.
- #038
In 2016, Bruce Greenwood was invited to join the Actors Branch of AMPAS.
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