Who

Robbins is a movie star, liberal activist, and self-appointed defender of the American Way. He can often be spotted alongside partner Susan Sarandon, spouting half-coherent political rants to the nearest camera.

Backstory

Robbins was born in California but grew up in New York, on King Street in the Village. The son of Gil Robbins, an actor and folk musician who paid the bills by managing the club Gaslight, Tim went to Catholic school as a little kid before following his sister into acting as a teenager, performing with the commando theater troupe Theatre for the New City. He went on to attend SUNY Plattsburgh and later moved to California to finish up his degree at UCLA, forming an experimental theater group after graduation called the Actors' Gang. For several years, Robbins subsisted on small parts in movies and TV shows (like St. Elsewhere) before star status arrived in 1988 with the role of Nuke LaLoosh in Bull Durham, a movie that also brought him together with Susan Sarandon.

A series of well-regarded performances followed in films like Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, Robert Altman's The Player, and The Shawshank Redemption. And Robbins proved himself equally capable behind the camera, earning a Best Director Oscar nomination for 1995's Dead Man Walking. He's been dividing his time between acting and directing—and political activism, of course—ever since. His most critically acclaimed role in recent years was in 2003's Mystic River, for which he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. The mid-'00s also saw Robbins appear in big budget action flicks like War of the Worlds and Zathura, the war satire Embedded (see below) and the historical Apartheid drama Catch a Fire.

Of note

Despite his boyish leading-man charm, Robbins has become more prominent of late as one of Hollywood's leading—and most self-congratulatory—liberals and social activists. A longtime bête noire of Republicans, he lost many Democratic fans after his switch to the Green Party and his highly-publicized 2000 vote for Ralph Nader. More recently, he's become one of Hollywood's most vocal critics of the war in Iraq. A regular at anti-war protests, Robbins penned a 2003 play—which became a 2005 movie—about the invasion, Embedded, based largely on his own impressions of the war gleaned from alt-news sources. Other projects near and dear to his heart include the environment (he restricts his driving to hybrids, naturally), anti-globalization, and the legalization of pot (he speaks out on behalf of the Marijuana Policy Project).

But just because he leans to the left doesn't mean he's a tempeh-eating pansy. When reporter Lloyd Grove suggested Robbins had inculcated his political viewpoints in his young son, the actor reportedly threatened to beat Grove up, telling the gossip, "If you ever write about my family again, I will fucking find you and I will fucking hurt you."

Off hours

When he isn't acting in movies or directing plays (or delivering half-baked political sermons), Robbins spends his time playing pickup hockey, performing in a punk rock cover band (Gob Roberts), and making the occasional appearance at The Back Room, the Lower East Side bar he co-owns with hockey player Mark Messier. When he's in attendance, you'll find him in the VIP area located behind the false bookcase at the far end of the bar.

Personal

Robbins has been involved with Sarandon, who's eight years his senior, since 1988; they've never actually married. The couple has two children— Jack and Miles, the latter of whom is in a teen band called the Tangents—and Robbins also has a step-daughter named Eva from Sarandon's previous relationship with Italian director Franco Amurri. Robbins and Sarandon divide their time between an apartment in Chelsea and homes in Pound Ridge and Beverly Hills. In 2007, they paid $3.5 million for a three-bedroom apartment in the forthcoming development One Madison Park, where their neighbors will include Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber.