His own childhood was far more exotic than any of the films he has been in. Gregory Buck Kinnear started life about as far away from Hollywood as you could get on June 17, 1963, in Logansport, Indiana. The youngest of three sons of Edward and Suzanne Kinnear, Greg had a conservative midwestern childhood, more like a future banker than a future movie star. By his own accounts it was a happy Tom Sawyer type of life full of fishing trips and life in suburbia.
All that came to an end in 1972 when his father took a job as a diplomat for the State Department. The family first moved to Washington for a few years, then all the way around the world in Beirut Lebanon in 1975. At first the exotic new country lived up to it's nickname, "The Paris of the Middle East," but after about six months things began to fall apart. Violence erupted, including a bomb less than a block from the Kinnear's home. The troubles quickly escalated into civil war and what was a beautiful tourist town soon became a war zone. As American diplomats, the Kinnears, including 12-year-old Greg, were right in the line of fire. In fact, their next door neighbor, Charles Gallagher, was the first American to be kidnapped. The family was quickly transferred to a safer post in Greece.
There he enrolled in the American Community School where his favorite activities were sports, debate and acting in Mrs. Penopolis' drama class. He got his first hosting job on a weekly radio show called "School Daze with Greg Kinnear" and was voted most talented by his classmates. He didn't get much American TV in Greece, but he did manage to see the Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live, which both became huge influences on him.
After graduation the Kinnears moved back to the US where Greg went to college in Tucson Arizona majoring in theater. One day a professor announced the happy news that less than 1% of the hopeful thespians would be able to make a career as an actor. Worried he wouldn't be one of the chosen, Greg decided to change his major to something more practical and graduated in 1985 with a degree in Broadcast Journalism.
