Rider Strong

Rider King Strong, born December 11, 1979, in San Francisco, California, is an American actor, producer, director, and screenwriter. The second son of Lin Strong, a teacher and nutritionist, and King Arthur Strong, a firefighter, both originally from Pennsylvania, Strong grew up with his elder brother Shiloh, who later became an actor and photographer. He graduated from Nonesuch School in Sebastopol, California in 1998, and went on to earn a degree magna cum laude in English from Columbia University in 2004, followed by a Master of Fine Arts in fiction and literature from Bennington College in June 2009.

Strong's performing career began at age nine with a stage role as Gavroche in a San Francisco production of Les Misérables, alongside Larisa Oleynik as Young Cosette. His first regular television role came in 1992, when he was cast as Adam MacGuire on Julie. The following year he made his film debut in Benefit of the Doubt, playing Amy Irving's son. Widespread recognition arrived when he was cast as Shawn Hunter on the ABC sitcom Boy Meets World, a role he held from 1993 to 2000. During the show's run he received two Young Artist Award nominations and one nomination for The Hollywood Reporter YoungStar Award. He reprised the role of Shawn Hunter in the sequel series Girl Meets World from 2014 to 2017, negotiating the return on the condition that he and his brother Shiloh would direct several episodes.

Strong's Broadway career spanned from 1988 to 2003 and included productions of both Les Misérables and The Graduate. While attending Columbia University, he took a semester away from his studies to appear in a Broadway production of The Graduate, starring opposite Jerry Hall as Mrs. Robinson.

After Boy Meets World concluded, Strong starred as Paul in the cult horror film Cabin Fever (2002), directed by Eli Roth, taking a semester's leave from Columbia to complete the role. He made a brief cameo appearance in the 2009 sequel, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever. In 2010, he appeared in the science fiction-thriller Darkening Sky, directed by Victor Bornia, and in Your Lucky Day, which premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival that year. Strong also provided voice work for the animated series Kim Possible from 2002 to 2004, voicing Brick Flagg, a role he reprised in Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama in 2005, and voiced Tom Lucitor in Star vs. the Forces of Evil from 2015 to 2019.

Strong co-wrote and co-directed the short film Irish Twins with his brother Shiloh, which premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. The film subsequently won both the Jury Award and Audience Award at the Woods Hole Film Festival, a Special Jury Prize in the Action/Cut Short Film Competition, and Best First-Time Director at DC Shorts. In September 2019, Strong debuted his play Never Ever Land in Los Angeles, a work inspired by the 1993 child sexual abuse accusations against Michael Jackson. In 2015, he received the Young Artist Former Child Star Lifetime Achievement Award.

Beyond performance and filmmaking, Strong co-founded the literary podcast Literary Disco in March 2012 alongside Julia Pistell and Tod Goldberg. Since 2022, he has co-hosted Pod Meets World, a Boy Meets World rewatch podcast, with Danielle Fishel and Will Friedle. In 2006, he recorded a reading for the audio version of the Anthony Kiedis biography Scar Tissue, and in early 2009 he narrated the audiobook of The Obama Revolution by Alan Kennedy-Shaffer.

Strong met actress Alexandra Barreto while filming the 2006 television series Pepper Dennis. The two became engaged in December 2012 and married on October 20, 2013, in Oregon. Their son, Indigo Barreto Strong, was born in December 2014.