Devin Ratray

Mice guts, French women who don't shave, and tarantulas - Devin Ratray's signature role as mean older brother Buzz in "Home Alone" (1990) had many of the film's most quotable lines. The flat-topped personification of sibling torment, Buzz wasn't the first (nor the last) of the quippy bullies Ratray played in the early '90s before transitioning to more grown-up fare. He first appeared in 1986's "Where are the Children?" (1986), and followed a short stint on "Heartland" (CBS, 1989) with a role as a schoolyard bully in the campy horror flick "Little Monsters" (1989). Then came Buzz in "Home Alone" (and its requisite sequel, 1992's "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York"), before he landed the role of a babysitting boyfriend in "Dennis the Menace" (1993). After over a decade of steady work, in 2008 he co-produced and starred in "Courting Condi," a faux-documentary/love story in which he played himself on a quest to fall in love with former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. A memorable turn in "Surrogates" (2009), followed by a cameo in the not-so-memorable "R.I.P.D." (2013) proved Devin Ratray had made the transition from child actor to adulthood just fine.

Born in New York City on January 11, 1977, Devin Ratray grew up knowing he'd become an actor; both his mother and father were small-time character actors, and his mother eventually became a full-time acting teacher. He studied drama at the High School for the Performing Arts, and landed his first film role in the domestic thriller "Where are the Children?" when he was just nine. After the quick cancellation of his debut TV series, "Heartland," in 1989, Ratray returned to the big screen in "Little Monsters" as Ronnie the schoolyard bully. His imposing presence and gravelly voice were well-suited to the role of the overgrown tormentor, and Ratray brought that same intimidating presence to his most recognizable role, Macaulay Culkin's nightmare sibling Buzz in "Home Alone." When the film's monster success demanded a sequel, Ratray dutifully returned to the gum-tipping, prank-pulling Buzz in "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York." And even though the franchise was over, Ratray's days as the neighborhood prankster continued to thrive. The next year he appeared in "Dennis the Menace" as the revenge-minded boyfriend of one Dennis' ill-fated babysitters. For the next decade and a half Ratray appeared in minor roles on everything from "Law & Order" (NBC, 1990-2010) to the indie family drama "The Cake Eaters" (2007). In 2008 Ratray returned to the spotlight with "Courting Condi," a hybrid documentary/musical he co-produced and starred in as a lovesick musician traveling the country in search of Condoleezza Rice. Filled with cameos from Republican strategists and Bush Administration officials, the film won numerous awards from film festivals as far away as Italy and South Africa. Ratray was later cast as a smart-aleck computer geek in "Surrogates," and as a destructive ghost in the D.O.A. "R.I.P.D."