Websites

Alex Winter's Official Website - Links to the companies and projects Alex is currently affiliated with.

Alex Winter Fansite - THE ultimate site dedicated to Alex Winter and the many different aspects of his career, both as an actor and a director!  Check it out, babes and dudes!

Freekland is back!!!  The ultimate Tom Stern / Alex Winter shrine!  It's reely exselent!!!

Stats

Birthday: July 17, 1965
Birthplace: London, England

Biography from 1989 Excellent Adventure Press Kit

To Bill Preston, friendship is everything. And when his best pal, Ted, is threatened with exile to military school, no solution is too "unprecedented." If that means wandering through the time-space continuum "collecting speakers for an oral report," his only question is . . . who can they "bag?"

ALEX WINTER, who plays the role, has been acting since he was seven. By 14 he was co-starring on Broadway, and at 21 was a graduate of the film school at New York University.

Born in London to a pair of professional dancers, Winter moved with his family to St. Louis, Missouri, where he spent his childhood on the stages of local community theatres. Relocating to New York, he starred with Yul Brynner and Constance Towers in a hit revival of "The King and I," then toured with the show. He returned to Manhattan for a Broadway production of "Peter Pan," and stayed to appear off Broadway as well.

After completing his studies at NYU, where his senior project was a short comedy film entitled "Squeal of Death" ? which he wrote, produced, directed and starred in ? Winter moved to Los Angeles to begin his motion picture career.

Following his screen bow in "Death Wish III," he was among the adolescent vampires of the supernatural hit, "The Lost Boys," then co-starred with Eric Stoltz and Laura Dern in "Haunted Summer."

Biography from 1991 Bogus Journey Press Kit

ALEX WINTER (Bill) has had success both as an actor and as a producer-director-writer. Aside from the title role of Bill in "Bill and Ted?s Excellent Adventure," Winter has starred opposite Laura Dern in "Haunted Summer," and co-starred in a variety of character roles in such films as "The Lost Boys" and "Rosalie Goes Shopping."

Winter is co-founder of Stern-Winter Productions with partner Tom Stern, a company designed specifically for their own projects. Along with Stern, he is currently writing, producing, directing and starring in "The Idiot Box," a weekly half-hour comedy show on MTV.

Under the aegis of Propaganda Films, the team has amassed an impressive body of directional work, notably the CBS Earth Day special, "Hard Rock Caf? Presents: Save the Planet." They have also produced videos for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Human Radio, Ice Cube and other groups.

Born in London, Winter began studying dance at age four. He emigrated with his dancer parents to St. Louis the following year and at age ten landed a role opposite Vincent Price in the St. Louis Opera production of "Oliver!"

After a career in commercials, he relocated to New York City and won a role in the 1977 Broadway revival of "The King and I," starring Yul Brynner. He toured in the show to Los Angeles, where he appeared in the CBS-TV film "Gaugin," and the landed back on Broadway in the revival of "Peter Pan" and off-Broadway in "Close of Play."

It was while studying film at New York City University in 1983 that Winter started acting in films as a way of raising money for his own projects with classmate Stern. He co-wrote, directed and starred as ten different characters in their first film, "Squeal of Death," and followed that with the horror / comedy short "Aisles of Doom." Both films have aired on Night Flight and West Coast Cable.

Updated Biography

Both of Alex's parents were professional dancers.  When Alex was five, his family moved to St. Louis, where his parents formed the Mid America Dance Company.  In a August 12, 1991 article in People magazine Alex says, "Whenever other companies would tour St. Louis, these crazed bohemian dancers would sleep all over the floor.  My memories of childhood are of waking up with a foot in my face."  As you can probably tell, Alex did not grow up with the burning desire to be a dancer!  However, in the August 1-7, 1991 addition of Drama-Logue magazine he said, "I was raised around artists.  I became attached at a very young age to theater and acting and film.  Buster Keaton was my first big hero.  That's what I wanted to do.  Not necessarily just be a comedian, but wanted to make films."

Alex started acting at a young age, appearing in commercials and the stage.  "Whenever the theater department needed a kid they would pluck me out of wherever I was and stick me in a Renaissance costume and put me on stage.  I thought it was a lot of fun.  The more physical it was, the more fun I had."  His parents divorced before he was 11 and he moved to New York with his mother, where appeared in The King and I starring Yul Brenner, he played John Darling in Peter Pan starring Sandy Duncan, and portrayed a street urchin in a local production of Oliver! with Vincent Price.  "I was working with a lot of great actors.  Especially doing off-Broadway stuff.  I just observed.  I knew what I liked and what I didn't like.  I would just observe those I like.  And I read anything I could get my hands on.  All the theory.  I am still reading."

In his early 20's, Alex studied film making at New York University, where he met fellow student Tom Stern.  The two hit it off and ended up leaving college (due to lack of funds, and perhaps enthusiasm for the accepted ways of doing things) and formed their own production company, "Stern Winter Productions."  They completed and released several short film projects they had started in college as well as a short-lived series for MTV called The Idiot Box and the movie Freaked.

Of course, the "Big Break" that drew international attention to Alex was the role of Bill S. Preston, Esq. in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.  He and Keanu hit it off at their first meeting.  "Keanu and I auditioned together for the first time in the very early stages.  Something clicked.  The comedy was there.  We were both improvising a lot.  A lot of stuff we took with us to the screen; our sense of goofy comedy, our love of improv.  The little studying I had done was with improv people.  Most of my learning to act was doing theater, but I was a real big fan of Second City and that school of acting; so was Keanu.  That's what clicked.  We created this patter, this dialogue that went back and forth.  It was one of the most satisfying auditions I ever had, given the fact I had never met the guy before.  Most time when you go into an audition with an actor you've never met, the chemistry is not there.  It can be very grueling and unsatisfying.  Some auditions can be satisfying even if you don't get the part.  It was a blast, I really enjoyed it."  When asked how much of the improvisation actually ended up in the finished Bill and Ted movies, Alex said, "A lot came from the script and a lot came from just the way we talk to each other; the dialogue and manner of two friends who are so close that they have their own manner of speaking to each other.  That came out of improv, the way we related to each other.  Even off camera we relate to each other in the same kind of goofy way."

In a interview with Seventeen magaine, Alex named Keanu, Laura Dern, and "a few others" as the only actors he actually personally liked.  "The acting profession attracts really self-indulgent, neurotic, lazy people."

These days Alex is doing what he's always loved best, "making films," only now he does most of his work behind the camera rather than in front of it.  Since he and Tom Stern went their separate professional ways, he's been producing short films, music videos (for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ice Cube, to name two!) and commercials.

In 1999, Alex wrote and directed the moody, dark suspense thriller Fever.  Set in New York City, Fever is the surreal story about a young artist (Henry Thomas) who finds himself trapped in a bizarre, dark world of murder and psychotic confusion.  Very different from the cartoonish, slapstick style of Alex's comedy films, Fever really let him show his true directing prowess.

At one point Alex was forming Hyena Films, a commercial production company in New York, with director Alex Halpern.  He was also writing a film for MTV about the hugely popular and unfairly targeted Napster creator Shawn Fanning and was also slated to direct the film Acts of Charity (written by Alex Winter and Chips Hardy) which promised to blow the whistle on bogus foreign aid campaigns around the world.

Alex did some directing of comedy shorts for Jimmy Kimmel Live.  He was also the director of a pilot series entitled Dirty Famous for VH-1.  Acting-wise, he made an appearance in 2007 on the Fox series Bones in an episode entitled The Girl in the Gator.  Also in 2007, Alex directed the live-action version of the hit animated series, Ben 10, called Ben 10: Race Against Time for Cartoon Network.  He also provided a voice in the offbeat Adult Swim show Saul of the Mole Men, also for Cartoon Network.

In 2009, Alex directed the follow-up Ben 10 movie for Cartoon Network entitled Ben 10: Alien Swarm.  He is slated to work on a script for the remake of the classic film Rock 'n Roll High School and is currently busy directing a 3-D remake of The Gate, which is due for release in 2012.  He has also directed episodes for several television series, including Supah Ninjas, Blue Mountain Slate and Level Up.

Alex is also currently wrapped shooting on his Napster documentary entitled Downloaded for VH-1 Rock Docs.  He has been making the convention rounds, appearing at such horror-themed cons as Horrorhound Weekend and May-Hem and has also recorded some voice work for Adult Swim's animated series Robot Chicken. 

Last updated: 3/24/12

For a list of Alex's acting, writing and directing credits,
please visit the Internet Movie Database