Marc Donato Biography

Date of Birth: January 1989

Born in Toronto, Ontario, Marc Donato began acting at the age of four in a Fleecy commercial. Soon after, he played his first dramatic role as three-year-old Jack in the mini-series J.F.K.: Reckless Youth (1993). The same year, he lent his voice to the animated series Tales from the Cryptkeeper. At five, he played roles in two TV movies and two feature films, including Billy Madison (1995), starring Adam Sandler. In 1996, he landed a regular role in the children's series Flash Forward, playing five-year-old Tucker James. Marc was a child on the doomed schoolbus in Atom Egoyan's critically acclaimed feature The Sweet Hereafter (1997), then worked opposite Sigourney Weaver and Julianne Moore in A Map of the World (1999). In his next big feature film, Marc played Haley Joel Osment's best friend Adam in Pay it Forward (2000). For his work in White Oleander (2002), Marc not only shared the screen with Michelle Pfeiffer and Alison Lohman, but he won a 2003 Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film - Supporting Young Actor. Marc next landed the starring role in The Blue Butterfly(2004), playing Pete Carlton, a terminally ill boy who goes to Costa Rica with a well-known entomologist (William Hurt) to search for an elusive butterfly.

Donato has also received Young Artist Awards for his work in the TV movies The Sweetest Gift (1998) and 1999's Locked in Silence (for which he received a Daytime Emmy award nomination). Other television appearances include TV movies such as Ultimate Betrayal (1994), The Morrison Murders (1996), The Time Shifters (1999) and Dangerous Child (2001). He has lent his voice to several animated programs including Rescue Heroes (1999), Redwall (1999) Animal Shelf (2000) and Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids (2003). In addition, he has found time to make guest appearances on TV series such as Due South, Twice in a Lifetime, Mutant X, Real Kids Real Adventures and Noddy.

Most recently, Marc has been cast as a 16-year-old who lands his dream job as a batboy for The New York Yankees in Clubhouse - a one-hour pilot produced by Mel Gibson and Aaron Spelling for CBS. In his spare time, Marc enjoys playing soccer.

Filmography:

The Blue Butterfly (2004)
White Oleander (2002)
Pay It Forward (2000)
A Map of the World (1999)
Bone Daddy (1998)
The Sweet Hereafter (1997)
Specimen (1996)
Billy Madison (1995)
The Killing Machine (1994)