CHRIS O’DONNELL (Peter Garrett) is one of the leading actors of his generation whose talent covers the range from action, adventure, romance, drama and comedy.
O’Donnell accepted the role of Peter in Vertical Limit because it was an interesting role in an attractive project and he wanted to work with director Martin Campbell: “Martin’s amazing. I feel really comfortable working with him. He’s just so prepared. In his head he’s already cut this whole movie, so he knows exactly what he wants and that’s the way I like to work. He really pays attention to every little nuance. It’s been great because we’ve really been able to pick out little points and beats to make a scene special.”
The life of his character, Peter Garrett, is devastated after a climbing accident in which he was forced to cut the rope holding his father in order to save his sister and himself. His sister hasn’t forgiven him and when they meet after three years of estrangement, he must climb K2, the world’s most feared mountain, to rescue her. “There is no doubt in his mind about what he has to do. There’s not a chance that he's not going after her and give it his all. If it kills him in the process that’s fine, because the idea of living with not having tried would be harder for him. “His only concern is to get her out. I don’t think he’s consciously thinking ‘hey this is my chance to save her,’ but if you stand back and analyze it, I’m sure that’s what it is.”
O’Donnell is from Chicago and studied marketing at Boston College. When not in Los Angeles, he also resides in Chicago, and sharing a home town connection with Robin Tunney, who plays his sister Annie Garrett: “I’ve actually known Robin for a while because she’s from Chicago and we had the same agent 10 or 12 years ago. It’s the strangest feeling to be making this film in New Zealand with this girl I knew when we were making television commercials back in Chicago. She’s really talented. A lot of our scenes are pretty emotional because of what our characters have gone through and it’s been great working with her.”
O’Donnell made his motion picture debut with a critically acclaimed performance as Jessica Lange’s rebellious son in the Paul Brickman feature Men Don't Leave, and followed with a memorable cameo in Jon Avenet's Academy Award nominated Fried Green Tomatoes.
In 1993, O’Donnell was nominated for a Golden Globe and won the Chicago Film Critics Award for this starring role opposite Al Pacino in the multiple Academy Award® winner Scent of a Woman, directed by Marty Brest. He then played the swashbuckling D'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers, for which he was named the NATO/ShoWest Male Star of Tomorrow in 1994.
O’Donnell adopted an Irish dialect to star in the romantic comedy sleeper Circle of Friends, and won over audiences worldwide with his stand-out performance as Robin in the highest-grossing film of 1995, Batman Forever. He went on to star in the dark legal thriller, The Chamber, and Lord Richard Attenborough's period romance In Love and War, before reprising his role as the daredevil acrobat and fledgling superhero in the 1997 hit Batman & Robin. In 1999, he co-starred in Robert Altman's critically acclaimed comedy Cookie's Fortune with an impressive ensemble cast that included Glenn Close, Julianne Moore, Liv Tyler and Charles Dutton.
O’Donnell most recently starred in the romantic comedy The Bachelor opposite Renee Zellweger. The film was produced by his production company George Street Pictures in association with New Line. Thirty-year-old O’Donnell and his wife Caroline had their first baby, Lily, while they were in New Zealand filming Vertical Limit.
