John Cusack, the son of documentary filmmaker Richard Cusack and younger brother of comic actress Joan Cusack, started his career at age eight, through the aegis of his theatrically active mother. Cusack made his stage bow with Evanston's Pivan Theatre Workshop, and within four years he was one of Chicagoland's busiest commercial voiceover artists. He made his film debut in 1983's Class, achieving stardom with his portrayal of a sexually anxious college freshman in The Sure Thing (1985). His not inconsiderable softball skills were brought into play in John Sayles' Eight Men Out (1988), wherein Cusack was cast as disgraced White Sox third baseman Buck Weaver. Often cast as an innocent victim of an uncompromising fate, Cusack could not be described as wide-eyed and ingenuous in his most powerful dramatic performance in The Grifters (1990). John Cusack's additional credits include Bullets Over Broadway (1994), The Road to Wellville (1994) and Grosse Point Blank (1997).