Jason James Richter (born January 29, 1980) is an American actor and musician who voiced Ringo the Bull in the Rugrats Season 5 episode "Piggy's Pizza Palace". He's best known for playing Jesse in the Free Willy trilogy.
Biography[]
Richter was born in Medford, Oregon, the son of actress Sandy Montgomery and U.S. Navy vet Greg Richter. At the age of three, while living in Honolulu, Hawaii at the time his dad was doing Navy work, a Japanese casting agency discovered him and signed him up for three TV spots. In 1989, the family relocated to Los Angeles so Richter could pursue an acting career.
Richter got his first big break in 1992 when he was cast by Simon Wincer to play the lead role of Jesse in Free Willy at the time the auditioning process reduced its 4,000 candidates to 12, and Wincer was brought in to replace original director Robin B. Armstrong. Free Willy became a big success and became one of the highest grossing films in 1993. Richter would play Jesse again in the sequels Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home and ''Free Willy 3: The Rescue in addition to the Michael Jackson music video "Childhood". Other credits include Cops & Robbersons, The NeverEnding Story III, The Client, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Laserhawk, The Setting Son and Ricochet River, his last before taking a hiatus to focus on music where he played as a guitarist and bassist for Blue Root and Fermata respectively. Since his return in 2009, Richter continued to appear in front of and behind the camera, and has also collaborated with his real-life stepfather and Free Willy 2 director Dwight Little on Tekken, Bones, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior and The Last Rampage.
It has been claimed that he is an avid fan of the Jacksonville Jaguars.