Garrett Hedlund is an American actor, model and singer who started his career in the entertainment industry in 2004. His notable films include Troy, Four Brothers, Tron: Legacy, On the Road, and Unbroken.

Early life
Hedlund was born in Roseau, Minnesota, to Kristine Anne (Yanish) and Robert Martin Hedlund. He has two older siblings - a brother Nathaniel, and a sister Amanda. The actor was raised on a remote beef cattle farm near the small town of Wannaska, Minnesota. When in the tenth grade, he moved to Arizona to live with his mother, where he opted for acting classes under coach Jean Fowler. After this, he modeled for L. L. Bean and Teen Magazine. In 2003, when he was eighteen, the actor moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting.

Personal life
Garrett Hedlund was dating his On The Road co-star Kirsten Dunst since 2012 and the couple lived together in Los Angeles, but broke up after more than four years in the relationship.

Movie Career
Garrett Hedlund debuted in the film industry with the mythological epic war drama Troy, portraying the character of Patroclus alongside Brad Pitt. He was nominated for Teen Choice Award for Choice Male Breakout Movie Star (2004) for this movie. His second venture was the crime thriller Four Brothers directed by John Singleton co-starring Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese Gibson, and André 3000. He played the role of Jack Mercer, one of the four brothers who get together to find out the truth behind the murder of their adoptive mother. He was nominated for the Black Reel Awards Best Ensemble for Four Brothers (2006) which he shared with André Benjamin, Tyrese Gibson, and Mark Wahlberg. His next was Stefen Fangmeier's British-American action-fantasy Eragon, which received average reviews.

Hedlund opened 2007 with the comedy-drama Georgia Rule opposite Lindsay Lohan, Jane Fonda and Felicity Huffman, which mostly received negative critical reception. He followed it up with the action-drama Death Sentence co-starring Kevin Bacon that got average reviews. The actor's next release was after three years with Joseph Kosinski's Tron: Legacy in 2010, a sequel to the 1982 film Tron, alongside Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner. He essayed the role of Samuel "Sam" Flynn, a shareholder who sets out to investigate his father's disappearance. His performance in the film won him Maui Film Festival Rising Star Award (2011) and Young Hollywood Award for Actor of the Year (2011), and a nomination of the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor (2011). In the same year, he was seen in the drama film Country Strong, the story of an emotionally unstable country music star who tries to re-establish her career, opposite Gwyneth Paltrow, Leighton Meester, and his Friday Night Lights co-star Tim McGraw.

Subsequent to this, the actor was seen as Dean Moriarty in the adventure drama On the Road with Kristen Stewart, Amy Adams, Steve Buscemi, and Kirsten Dunst. This Walter Salles' direction was based on Jack Kerouac's novel of the same name. This followed with the role of a beat poet in the black comedy drama Inside Llewyn Davis, co-starring Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, F. Murray Abraham, and Justin Timberlake. In the 2014 drama film Lullaby, he played the son of a stubborn cancer-stricken father (Richard Jenkins) who has decided to stop all medications and not depend on life support machines. His other 2014 release was the biographical war thriller Unbroken directed by Angelina Jolie that was based on the life of USA Olympian and athlete Louis Zamperini. Joe Wright's Pan, a 2015 American fantasy film, saw Garrett Hedlund as a miner alongside an ensemble cast including Hugh Jackman, Rooney Mara, Amanda Seyfried, and Levi Miller. His next film Mojave in which he played an artist, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2015 and had a limited release in January 2016, by A24. The movie received mixed reviews from critics.

Hedlund's 2016 releases include the multi-starrer Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, a war drama directed by Ang Lee, co-starring Joe Alwyn, Kristen Stewart, Vin Diesel, Steve Martin and Chris Tucker.

As a singer
Apart from acting in the movie Country Strong, he has recorded many songs for the film including Chances Are, Silver Wings, Hard Out Here, Timing Is Everything, and Give In To Me - a duet with Leighton Meester. He received high critical praises for all his songs in the film.

Television Career
American television drama series Friday Night Lights marked Hedlund's debut in the television industry in which he co-starred with Billy Bob Thornton and Connie Britton. It revolves around a high school football team in the fictional town of Dillon, Texas, in which the actor portrayed the role of Don Billingsley. Hedlund then appeared in the second season of an MTV television show, When I Was 17 as himself, which had popular celebrities and discussed about their lives when they were 17.