Jaeden Martell – Life Story of The Upcoming Actor

Jaeden Martell is an American actor best known for his lead roles in films like ‘The Book of Henry’ and ‘It’. He earned critical acclaim for his debut role in the comedy-drama ‘St. Vincent’ and went on to star in films such as ‘Playing It Cool’, ‘Aloha’, ‘Midnight Special’, ‘The Confirmation’, ‘The Lodge’, ‘Low Tide’, ‘The True Adventures of Wolfboy’ and ‘Knives Out’. He recently reprised his role in the sequel ‘It Chapter Two’. On television, he had a supporting role in the period drama ‘Masters of Sex’ and is slated to portray the title character on the crime drama ‘Defending Jacob’.

Jaeden Martell has diverse mixed ancestry

Jaeden Martell has a mixed heritage that includes 1/4th Korean, German, English, 1/16th French-Canadian, 1/16th Belgian/Walloon, Scots-Irish, and Scottish ancestry. He is quarter Korean through his maternal grandmother, Chisun Martell. His grandmother cooks Korean dishes at home and his favorite is a dish called ‘Dduk Guk’. He is proud of his Asian heritage and celebrated May 2019 as the Asian Heritage Month by posting a picture of himself wearing a T-shirt from Phenomenal Woman Campaign with the caption ‘Phenomenally Asian’.

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His father is an executive chef and a singer

Jaeden Martell’s father Wes Lieberher is a Los Angeles-based executive chef who works at TouchPoint Support Services in the Greater Chicago Area and is the founder of Chef Wes Lieberher Consulting. He was previously the Corporate Executive Chef at J Fall Group and served as the executive chef at Beer Belly in Los Angeles, California and at Vintage Wine Bar & Bistro in Philadelphia. He has appeared on several reality television cooking competition shows such as Travel Channel’s ‘Food Paradise’, Food Network’s ‘Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives’, Esquire Network’s ‘Knife Fight’, and ABC’s ‘The Taste’. Before earning fame as a chef, he was the frontman and vocalist of the Philadelphia-based rock band ‘Little League’, which became known as ‘Kill Verona’ in 2001.

Jaeden Martell’s parents are divorced

Jaeden Martell’s parents, Wes Lieberher and Angela Teresa Martell, are divorced. He now lives with his mother, while his father has married again. He has three younger stepsiblings named Sydney, Jovi and Hayes Lieberher from his father’s marriage to his current wife, Bree Lieberher. His father regularly posts his pictures on his Instagram, sometimes with his younger siblings. He, however, usually often shares pictures with his mother on his own Instagram and very rarely shares pictures with his father.

Jaeden Martell moved to Los Angeles with his family in 2011

Jaeden Martell, who was born in South Philadelphia, moved to Los Angeles, California, with his family in 2011, when he was only eight years old. When his parents were busy, they often left him in the care of an acquaintance, who is an actress and also has three children who are actors. She encouraged him to try out acting and later became his manager. While he was a very shy and quiet kid, he was intrigued by the suggestion and told his mother that he wanted to act. His mother was genuinely surprised because she never thought that he would be “interested in something where you have to put yourself out there and be vulnerable”.

Jaeden Martell initially acted in commercials

He went to auditions for commercials for about a year without booking anything, which was strenuous for his mother who had to drive him to auditions after work. He had almost given up when he booked his first commercial for Hot Wheels. It was followed by appearances in more commercials by companies such as Google, Moneysupermarket.com, Liberty Mutual, Verizon Fios and General Electric. He also acted in the 2013 Super Bowl ad by South Korean brand Hyundai. He was eventually cast in the 2013 short film ‘Grief’ and began acting in movies at the age of ten, starting with ‘St. Vincent’.

He won prestigious awards for his debut film role in ‘St. Vincent’

Jaeden Martell played the role of Oliver Bronstein in his debut feature film, ‘St. Vincent’, starring prominent actors like Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, and Naomi Watts. In the film, McCarthy played the role of his adoptive mother and Murray played the titular character, who was also Oliver’s neighbor. He was nominated for several awards for his role, and won two of them: ‘Youth in Film’ at the ‘Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards’ and ‘Best Performance by a Youth- Male’ at the ‘Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards’. His other nominations include ‘Best Youth Performance’ from the ‘Washington D.C. Film Critics Association’, ‘Best Young Actor/Actress’ at the ‘Broadcast Film Critics’ Association Awards’, and ‘Breakthrough Actor’ at the ‘2015 YouReviewers Movie Awards’.

Jaeden Martell has appeared alongside Bill Murray in two movies

Soon after making his film debut alongside legendary actor, Bill Murray, in the 2014 movie ‘St. Vincent’, he again acted with the veteran actor in the 2015 film ‘Aloha’, which also starred Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, John Krasinski, Danny McBride and Alec Baldwin. However, he played the role of Mitchell Woodside, the son of the characters played by Rachel McAdams and John Krasinski, and did not have interactions with the character played by Murray in this film.

He had leading roles in the 2017 films ‘It’ and ‘The Book of Henry’

In 2017, Jaeden Martell was roped in to play the title role of 11-year-old boy genius Henry Carpenter in the drama film ‘The Book of Henry’. While the film was not critically successful, the same year he gained recognition for playing the lead role of Bill Denbrough in the supernatural horror film ‘It’, an adaptation of the 1986 Stephen King novel of the same name. For the role, he practiced stuttering watching YouTube videos. Along with his cast members, he shared the ‘Best On-Screen Team’ award at the ‘2018 MTV Movie & TV Awards’.

Jaeden Martell is best friends with his ‘It’ cast members

In the 2017 adaptation of ‘It’, he was one of the seven kids terrorized by Pennywise the Dancing Clown in the fictional town of Derry, Maine. While filming of the movie, he developed close friendships with the other kid actors including Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs and Jack Dylan Grazer. The cast were not allowed to use mobile phones to emulate the ’90s feel and spent most of the time hanging out together, often at co-star Wyatt’s house. They were also made to go through acting and trust exercises with each other by an acting coach, which strengthened their bonds that grew stronger even after shooting had ended.

He also bonded with James McAvoy for ‘It’ sequel

In the 2019 sequel to ‘It’, he reprised the role of Bill Denbrough, while James McAvoy played the grown up version of the character. The two generations of the characters again bonded during the shooting period, which included ‘speed-dating’ to talk about their character’s “guilt and the pain”. He also had a great learning experience writing his older self a letter in character, which McAvoy read during his shooting.

His mother is his number one role model

Jaeden Martell, who is now raised by his single mother, considers his mother to be his number one role model. He admires her for working hard and selflessly, and tries to model himself following the same principles, treating others with kindness and striving to do things to help others. Among actors, he admires Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio for their acting abilities as well as for their personal achievements as human beings.

He changed his last name from Lieberher to Martell

Jaeden, who began appearing in commercials and movies after relocating to Los Angeles, was credited as Jaeden Lieberher during the first six years of his career. In 2019, he changed his surname to Martell, adopting his mother’s surname. The last film he was credited as Jaeden Lieberher was ‘The True Adventures of Wolfboy’, released in July 2019, and the first film he was credited as Jaeden Martell was ‘Low Tide’, released in April 2019.

He loves antiheroes in movies

Jaeden Martell is a fan of gangster and crime films, especially ‘Goodfellas’ by Martin Scorsese and ‘The Godfather’ series by Francis Ford Coppola. He also loves any film in which his favorite actor Robert De Niro played a shady or negative role. He is also fond of Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the super-villain Joker in ‘The Dark Night’. According to him, there is something about antiheroes that people fall in love with even though they should not “root for” them.

He has dated dancer Lilia Buckingham

Jaeden Martell has dated American dancer Lilia Buckingham, who is a member of the MNR Dance Factory. There were rumors of the couple dating for some time, and on January 4, 2018, his birthday, she posted an image of him on her Instagram, adding that he was her “favorite person”. She later confirmed the rumors on Valentine’s Day by sharing a picture on her Instagram of her giving him a kiss on the forehead. She revealed in the caption that they have been dating for 41 days.