Liam Aiken

Liam Padraic Aiken or Liam Aiken (born January 7, 1990) is an American actor who has starred in a number of films, such as Stepmom and Good Boy!. He starred as Klaus Baudelaire in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, based on the series of books. Aiken’s first major film role was playing Susan Sarandon’s young son in Stepmom in 1998, which also starred Julia Roberts and Jena Malone. He appeared as Tom Hanks’ younger son in the 2002 film Road to Perdition. He starred in the 2003 family film Good Boy! about dogs from space, playing the lead Owen Baker. He turned down the role of Cole Sear in The Sixth Sense (1999) because his mother felt he was too young for the death-fixated role; the role went instead to Haley Joel Osment. Aiken was also considered for the role of Harry Potter as he had previously worked with director Chris Columbus on Stepmom. However, as he is not British, Daniel Radcliffe took the part. In 2004 Aiken went on to play the intelligent 12-year-old orphan Klaus Baudelaire in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. In March 2009, Aiken was cast as Johnnie Pappas in Michael Winterbottom’s remake of The Killer Inside Me, starring Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson.

In the fall of 2008, Aiken entered New York University as an undergraduate studying film and television. As of September 2011, he is starring in the American TV show A Gifted Man on CBS.