Liev (pronounced Lee-ev) Schreiber was born in San Francisco. His mother, Heather (Milgram), is a painter, and his father, Tell Schreiber (Tell Carroll Schreiber III), is a theatrical actor who had a small role in The Keeper (1976). His mother is from a working-class Jewish family from Poland and Russia, while his father is from an upper-class Protestant family. His parents moved the family to Canada when Liev was one, and divorced when he was five. He and his mother moved to New York, where she drove a cab. During that time, they lived as squatters in abandoned buildings. His mother taught him to read, and she also forbade him from seeing color movies. He grew up seeing silent and black & white movies at a local revival house and particularly enjoyed those of Charles Chaplin. His mother now lives in an ashram in Virginia. He began acting at Hampshire College and continued at the Yale University School of Drama in 1992. He originally wanted to be a playwright, but his teacher encouraged him to become an actor.

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Trivia

Grew up in Lower East Side New York. Graduated from Friends Seminary High School in Manhattan.
Attended London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Hampshire College and graduated with a Master's degree from the Yale School of Drama in 1992.
Son of actor Tell Schreiber and Heather Schreiber. Has four half-brothers and one-half sister, including younger half-brother, Pablo Schreiber.
His mother says she named him after her favorite author, Leo Tolstoy whose Russian name was Lev (pronounced "l'yehv" --the letter e in Russian is pronounced "yeh", and the standard English transliteration of the name is Lev). His father says he was named after a doctor in San Francisco who saved his mother's life.

Last name means "writer" in German.
Attended Friends Seminary High School with actress Amanda Peet when he was a senior and she was a freshman.
Liev's father is from a family that has lived in the United States for many generations, and has German, Swiss, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Norwegian, Belgian (Flemish), Scottish, and Welsh ancestry. Liev's mother is from an Ashkenazi Jewish family (from Poland and Russia).

It's not easy being 6' 3" and being called 'Huggy'. - on the nickname he's had since childhood.
I think a certain amount of Ricky's rage and profanity has been a nice vent from the frustrations of the editing room, so it's great to come out screaming profanities at the audience for an hour and a half after eight hours of trying to be diplomatic in the editing room. on editing 'Everything is Illuminated' at the same time as acting as foul-mouthed Ricky Roma in "Glengarry Glen Ross.
Trying to escape the powder puff and the man blush was the primary motivation for this whole endeavor. It's weird. You think, 'Now I'm going to direct, and they won't give me such a hard time about how I look.' But sure enough, there they are, coming at you with the powder puff and the man blush. [on the make-up required to 'hide' his nose]
That's the hard thing about adapting a book that's so well loved. It's like playing Hamlet. The audience doesn't buy it, because they're Hamlet. How could you possibly be Hamlet when Hamlet is them? It's one of those difficult things where a good writer gives the reader ownership of the material. They develop an intimate relationship with it and become its protectors, and rightly so. Whether they like the movie or not, there is something a bit outrageous about exploiting their private story.