Michael A. Goorjian

Michael A. Goorjian

Michael A. Goorjian (born February 4, 1971; San Francisco) is an American filmmaker, writer and actor. Goorjian won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Special for his role as David Goodson in the television film David's Mother (1994). He is also known for his role as Justin, Neve Campbell’s love interest on the series Party of Five (1994–2000), as well as Heroin Bob in the film SLC Punk! (1998) and its sequel, Punk's Dead (2016). As a director, Goorjian achieved recognition for his first major independent film, Illusion (2004), which he wrote, directed and starred in alongside Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas. Goorjian was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. His father, Peter, is Armenian, with his paternal grandparents being survivors of the Armenian genocide; his mother, Sarah, is of Scottish-American descent. Goorjian grew up in Oakland, California, and attended Bishop O'Dowd High School, which had a strong drama program. At the age of 14, he decided to audition for a local theatre company, thinking it was a ‘cool way’ to skip class; after successfully landing the lead role in a 'not-so-cool' play called Computer Crazy, Goorjian soon found out that the rest of the cast were all senior citizens and that he would have to perform the play at his own junior high school. Despite this seemingly rather humiliating experience, Goorjian stuck with acting, eventually training at UCLA’s School of Theatre, Film and Television. Goorjian’s first big Hollywood break came as a dancer when, in 1992, he was cast as ‘Skittery’ in the Disney film Newsies (starring Christian Bale and Robert Duvall). What followed were roles in numerous subsequent films, including Chaplin (with Robert Downey Jr.), Forever Young (with Mel Gibson), the Oscar-nominated Leaving Las Vegas, Hard Rain (with Morgan Freeman and Christian Slater), SLC Punk! (with Devon Sawa), The Invisibles (with Portia de Rossi), Broken (with Heather Graham) and Conversations with God. Goorjian made his first real foray into directing with the mock-documentary Oakland Underground, a comedy about an underground occult music scene in Oakland, CA. From there, Goorjian made Illusion with Kirk Douglas, which was released theatrically in 2006 after racking up over a dozen festival awards, including Best Screenplay at The Hampton’s International Film Festival, Best Feature at the Lake Tahoe International Film Festival and The Audience Award at the Sonoma International Film Festival. With Illusion Goorjian was critically lauded for his ability to blend great filmmaking with philosophical depth. Soon after Illusion, Goorjian began collaborating with the publishing company Hay House to produce and direct a number of films including the documentary You Can Heal Your Life (2007), starring metaphysical author and teacher, Louise L. Hay and The Shift, starring author Dr. Wayne Dyer, along with Michael DeLuise and Portia de Rossi. His most recent work with Hay House is an original film anthology called Tales of Everyday Magic, which explores meaningful philosophical ideas through intimate character-driven stories.

Known For: Directing

Born: San Francisco, California, USA, 1971-02-04

Died: null

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1992	Newsies	Skittery	68
2	1992	Forever Young	Steven	65
3	1992	Chaplin	Charles Chaplin Jr	74
4	1993	The Flood: Who Will Save Our Children?	Scott Chapman	62
5	1994	David's Mother	David Goodson	83
6	1995	Leaving Las Vegas	College Boy 1	73
7	1998	Art House	Danny Farthing	35
8	1998	Hard Rain	Kenny	58
9	1998	SLC Punk	Bob	71
10	1999	The Invisibles	Jude	0
11	1999	Life in a Day	Dr. Peter Hamilton	60
12	1999	Here Lies Lonely	Sid	0
13	1999	Do Not Disturb	Billy Boy Manson	49
14	2000	Deal of a Lifetime	Henry	67
15	2000	Something More	Sam	47
16	2001	Amerikana	Peter	60
17	2002	The Mesmerist	Coroner #1	25
18	2002	Go for Broke	Rome / Romie	48
19	2004	Illusion	Christopher	76
20	2006	Conversations with God	Roy	68
21	2007	Broken	Thomas	56
22	2008	Around June	Mr. Lewis	25
23	2016	Punk's Dead: SLC Punk 2	Bob	48
24	2017	The Wizard of Lies	Dan Horwitz	66
25	2018	Pin-Up	Guy	0
26	2022	Amerikatsi	Charlie	75
27	2022	Land of Dreams	Bartender	43

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1985	Growing Pains	Hank Miller	65
2	1994	Party of Five		70
3	1994	Party of Five	Justin Thompson	70
4	1994	Chicago Hope		72
5	1994	Touched by an Angel	Budd Glaser	72
6	2000	CSI: Crime Scene Investigation	Aaron Pratt	76
7	2001	Alias	Andre Sterescu	68
8	2002	Monk	Jacob Carlyle	79
9	2002	CSI: Miami	John Stockman	77
10	2002	Without a Trace	Ricky Wilson	72
11	2004	House	Sean Randolph	86
12	2009	Lie to Me		79
13	2010	Covert Affairs	Borz Altan	68
14	2016	Lucifer	Elliot Richards	84
15	2022	The Lincoln Lawyer	Alex Grant	77