Alexander Ludwig (born on May 7, 1992 as Alexander Richard Ludwig) is a Canadian teen actor. He played Will Stanton in the 2007 fantasy film, The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising. In March 2009, Ludwig appeared in a lead role in Disney's Race to Witch Mountain.

Early life

Ludwig was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. He has twin sisters, Natalie and Sophia, and a brother, Nicholas. His mother, Sharlene (née Martin), is a former actress, and his father, Harald Horst Ludwig, is a businessman. The actor was drawn to the profession, saying in an interview, "I have a big imagination. I love performing." Yet, despite his mother's early career as an actress, Ludwig had to convince his parents to support his desire to pursue a career as a child actor. His parents believed that child actors "can get sucked into a life that isn't reality."

Career

Ludwig's career began when he was nine years old in a Harry Potter toy commercial, a job that enabled him to sign on with an agent and obtain more commercial work. After which, he was cast in movies such as Air Bud World Pup (2000), MXP: Most Extreme Primate (2003), Scary Godmother: The Revenge Of Jimmy (2005), Eve and the Fire Horse (2005), The Sandlot: Heading Home (aka, The Sandlot 3) (2007). In addition to cinema, Ludwig has also worked in television. He has performed in movies made for television, such as A Little Thing Called Murder (2006), and series television such as The Dead Zone. Ludwig obtained his leading role in The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising (2007) after a "gruelling audition process." By his count, he had 16 auditions before finally being cast.
Alexander Ludwig's next lead role came in the part of Seth — one half of a teenage, alien brother-sister duo — in the film production of Race to Witch Mountain (2009), also starring Dwayne Johnson, the professional wrestler turned actor. Seth is the part originated by Ike Eisenmann in the 1975 original, Escape to Witch Mountain. The film opened at number 1 at the box office the weekend that it premiered with receipts estimated at $25 million. Whereas the casting process for The Seeker had been arduous, getting the part for Witch Mountain was relatively painless. From the moment Ludwig auditioned, the director knew that he was the actor he wanted for the role of Seth.
Despite his early casting success with The Seeker, Ludwig indicated in a contemporaneous interview that it was his intention to attend university. In another interview, the actor said that the most challenging thing about filming The Seeker was trying "to juggle school while filming. My school wasn't used to it, and I wasn't used to it. It was the most amazing experience, but it was really hard." Ludwig is enrolled as a theatre major at the University of Southern California, and lives full time in Los Angeles.
He will play Cato in the movie adaptation of The Hunger Games. The film is set to be released on March 23, 2012 in the US. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.