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After his parents' divorce, Brad Renfro was raised by his grandmother in Knoxville, Tennessee. He developed his acting ability early in school productions, breaking into
movies at age 10 when he made a favorable impression playing a drug dealer in a
skit sponsored by a national anti-drug organization. Joel Schumacher recommended Renfro to a talent scout who was holding a national open casting call for a young man to play a traumatized boy who finds himself in the midst of a chilling homicide case in The Client (1994). Renfro, who had no training and little acting experience, was chosen based on his background (an authentic underprivileged and streetwise Southern boy) and his performing ease. The sad-eyed, dark-haired actor won the part and found himself working opposite such major players as Tommy Lee Jones, Susan Sarandon, Ossie Davis and Mary-Louise Parker. Renfro held his own quite well and earned positive reviews for his performance.
Then in 1995, Renfro played a new kid in town who befriends and decides to find a cure for a young boy who contracts the AIDS virus through a tainted blood transfusion in the emotional film, The
Cure (1995). A natural in roles that used his innate bad boy charms, Renfro continued his rise to stardom when chosen to play Huckleberry Finn in Disney's "Tom and Huck" with Jonathan Taylor
Thomas as Tom Sawyer. However Renfro was disappointed in the production feeling it to be bland and without "edge". He made up for this in 1996's gritty drama "Sleepers", in which Renfro
played the young incarnation of Brad Pitt's character Michael, one of a group of teens savagely abused at the hands of a sadistic guard (Kevin Bacon) while in juvenile detention.
Starring as a
young Hungarian immigrant boy who apprentices himself to a payola-driven radio DJ paired him again with Bacon the following year, the two acting out Joe Eszterhas' semi-autobiographical script in Guy
Ferland's acclaimed "Telling Lies in America". Renfro's role in "Apt Pupil" featured him as a schoolboy fascinated with Nazism and the discovery that his elderly neighbor Kurt
Dussander (Ian McKellen) was in fact a concentration camp guard living undetected. Both Renfro and McKellen were particularly sinister as the crafty manipulators in Bryan Singer's adaptation of this
Stephen King novella.
Shortly before the release of the film, a scandal arose after he was pulled over for speeding and the police found drugs in his possession and arrested him for driving under the influence of marijuana. He was also found in possession of cocaine. When Brad was arrested, his grandmother bailed him out of jail. He struck a plea bargain and agreed to random drug screening.
Brad was arrested in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida for attempting to steal a yacht. He was sentenced to pay the damages to the yacht (Brad and his accomplice forgot to untie the yacht from the dock)
and also two years probation.
He delivered a powerful performance as a troubled Florida youth who turns on his abusive best friend in "Bully" (2001).
Renfro won "The
Hollywood Reporter's Young Star Award" in 1995 and was nominated as one of People Magazine's "Top 30 Under 30". He continues to land quality roles and critical acclaim.
A fan of the
guitar greats, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Jimmy Page, Renfro took up playing the guitar at a young age and continues to play on his own time.
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