Logan Wade Lerman (born January 19, 1992) is an American actor. He appeared in commercials in the mid-1990s, before starring in the series Jack & Bobby (2004–2005) and the movies The Butterfly Effect (2004) and Hoot (2006). Lerman gained further recognition for playing the title character in the Percy Jackson film series (2010–2013) and d'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers (2011), as well as for starring in the coming-of-age drama The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012). He had major roles in the films Noah (2014), Fury (2014) and Indignation (2016), and returned to television with the thriller series Hunters (2020–2023).
Lerman was born in Beverly Hills, California. His mother, Lisa (née Goldman), works as his manager, and his father, Larry Lerman, is a businessman and orthotist. He has an older sister and an older brother.
Lerman is Jewish, having had a bar mitzvah ceremony in his youth. His grandparents were born in four different countries. His paternal grandfather, Max Lerman, was born in Berlin, in 1927, to a Polish Jewish family; they left Germany in the 1930s because of the Nazi regime, living in Shanghai until the end of World War II. His paternal grandmother, Mina (née Schwartz), was born in Mexico City to Russian Jewish parents. His maternal grandfather was a Polish Jewish immigrant, and his maternal grandmother was born in Los Angeles, also to a Jewish immigrant family. On his mother's side, he is a relative, by marriage, of twin singers Evan and Jaron Lowenstein.
Lerman has stated that he is a "black sheep" in his household because he is an actor, while most of his relatives work in the medical profession. His family owns and operates an orthotics and prosthetics company, which was founded by his great-grandfather in 1915. He attended Beverly Hills High School. In 2010, he applied to study creative writing at New York University but postponed his attendance.
Lerman had a passion for movies from a young age, though he started acting "just for fun" and "to do something to get out of school". He began auditioning for roles in the late 1990s, and first appeared in commercials. He made his film debut in 2000's The Patriot, playing William Martin, one of the lead character's children. The same year, he appeared in What Women Want. In 2001's Riding in Cars with Boys, he played the son of the main character. Lerman has stated that while appearing in his earliest roles as a child, he did not have "any conscious awareness of what I was doing or what was going on" and "didn't have a good experience".
In 2003, Lerman played nine-year-old Luke Chandler in the CBS made-for-television film A Painted House, based on the early life of author John Grisham and set in Black Oak, Arkansas in the early 1950s. A Painted House was filmed in Lepanto and Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 2002. A review in the Boston Globe described Lerman as a "promising newcomer" with the Telegraph-Herald commenting on the character having been "quietly and effectively played". For the role, he was nominated for the Young Artist Award for Best Performance by a Leading Young Actor in a television production, and tied with Calum Worthy for the win. He next appeared in the 2004 thriller film The Butterfly Effect, portraying a seven-year-old version of character Evan Treborn. digitallyOBSESSED's reviewer described Lerman as "definitely a child actor to watch".
Lerman had quit acting for a "year or so" in the early 2000s, when he was ten. He made a "conscious decision" to embrace acting as a profession when he was twelve, having developed an interest in the filmmaking process. In 2004, he was cast in the television series Jack & Bobby, playing one of the title roles, Robert "Bobby" McCallister, a 12-year-old "extremely bright social misfit" in Missouri who was destined to become President of the United States as an adult. The show ran on The WB Television Network during the 2004–2005 season, receiving some positive reviews but low ratings, and was subsequently canceled. Lerman was nominated for another Young Artist Award for his performance, tying with Jack DeSena for the win. Lerman has stated that he "started taking things seriously" about his career after appearing on the show. The Boston Herald's reviewer mentioned that Lerman's performance had a "blend of vulnerability and strength", while Entertainment Weekly's reviewer had noted that "Lerman lends Bobby a bedraggled optimism".
Continuing his film work, Lerman had his first starring role in a motion picture, playing Roy Eberhardt in the children's adventure Hoot; his character moves to Florida from Montana and attempts to save endangered burrowing owls. Lerman stated that the film's message is "that you can be any age and make a difference". Hoot began filming in July 2005 in South Florida, opened on May 5, 2006, and won him a third Young Artist Award, this time for Best Performance in a Feature Film – Leading Young Actor (2007). The Washington Post's reviewer commented that "Lerman shows some life as Roy" though his role was "an anomaly in a sea of insipidity", while the San Francisco Chronicle's reviewer disliked Lerman's performance.
In 2007, Lerman appeared in the thriller The Number 23, in which he played the son of Walter Sparrow, a man who becomes obsessed with numerology. That year, he also appeared in the critically acclaimed western remake 3:10 to Yuma, playing William Evans, a teenager who looks up to criminal Ben Wade while shunning his father; Lerman's character did not exist in the original version of the story. Lerman received positive reviews for his work, and was again nominated for the Young Artist Award – Best Performance in a Feature Film – Leading Young Actor (2008). It was the second consecutive year he received a nomination in that category, although this time he did not win. USA Today stated that he was among the film's "best supporting players", while Rolling Stone gave Lerman a "shout-out" and Newsday stated that he delivers a "credibly explicit note".
In 2008, Lerman co-starred in the comedy Meet Bill as a teenager mentored by Bill. Meet Bill was filmed in 2006, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2007, and received a theatrical release on April 4, 2008. Hollywood.com stated that, though the film was uneven, Lerman "displays a supreme confidence". In 2009, he appeared in the science fiction film Gamer, as Simon, a teenage gamer who controls one of the characters in a video game played with live human subjects. Also that year, Lerman had a leading role in the comedy My One and Only, playing a teenage character based on actor George Hamilton – depicted as an aspiring writer who, after his parents split, accompanies his mother and brother on a cross-country trip, eventually arriving in Hollywood. Bloomberg's reviewer described Lerman as appealing, with the Los Angeles Times' Betsy Sharkey stating that the character "captures the ease with which an angry teen will use a growing vocabulary to wound a parent".
Mainstream success (2009–2016)
In spring 2009, Lerman was cast in the lead role as Percy Jackson in Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. The movie was filmed in 2009 in Vancouver, British Columbia, and was released in February 2010. Lerman has stated that he was not familiar with the book series when he received the script. During his teenage years, Lerman and his family had viewed his acting work as just a "hobby" before college; his parents had only become more comfortable with acting as a career in 2010, the year of Percy Jackson's release. In August 2010, Lerman appeared in "Change the Odds", a public service announcement video for the Stand Up to Cancer charity.
Lerman's next role was d'Artagnan, in director Paul W. S. Anderson's 3D film version of The Three Musketeers, which was released in the U.S. on October 21, 2011. Lerman was cast in the role without having to audition. He took the role because The Three Musketeers was one of the only books his paternal grandfather had taken with him when he "had to leave his home... as a young kid" in the 1930s. Lerman trained in sword fighting for three months and wore hair extensions to portray d'Artagnan, whom he has described as "the most different character to me that I've ever played". The film received negative reviews, with Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune writing that "Lerman already has done solid work... but he's a blank slate here."