Alex Winter
Winter at 2025New York Film Festival
Born	(1965-07-17)17 July 1965 (age 60) London, England
Occupations	Actor filmmaker
Years active	1978–present
Spouses	Sonya Dawson (m. 1995;div. ?) Ramsey Ann Naito ​ (m. 2010)​
Children	3

Alexander Ross Winter (born 17 July 1965) is a British and American actor and filmmaker. As an actor, he is best known for playing Bill S. Preston,Esq., in the 1989 filmBill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and its sequelsBill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991) andBill & Ted Face the Music (2020). He is also known for his role as Marko in the 1987 vampire filmThe Lost Boys, for co-writing, co-directing, and starring in the 1993 filmFreaked,^[1][2] and for directing documentaries in the 2010s.

Winter was born in London on 17 July 1965.^[3] His mother, Gregg Mayer, is a New York-born dancer who trained withMartha Graham, and founded a modern-dance company in London in the mid-1960s. His father, Ross Albert Winter, is an Australian who danced with Winter's mother's troupe and co-founded the Mid American Dance Company in St. Louis.^[4] His father has English ancestry and his mother is Jewish, ofUkrainian Jewish descent. His family wasn’t observant with their Judaism although he went to Jewish summer camp and learnedYiddish through his grandmother.^[5][6]

Winter received training in dance as a child. When he was five, his family moved toMissouri, where his father ran the Mid-American Dance Company (later, Modern American Dance Company^[7]), while his mother taught dance atWashington University in St. Louis.^[8][9] The two divorced in 1973.^[10]

In 1978, Winter moved to the New York City area, where he and his mother lived inMontclair, New Jersey.^[11] During this time Winter began performing as an actor on and off Broadway, commuting into New York City.^[10] He reports his experience in New Jersey as being positive.^[12]

In 1983, after graduating fromMontclair High School, Winter was accepted into theTisch School of the Arts atNew York University. While at NYU, he met fellow aspiring filmmakerTom Stern.^[13] The two collaborated on a number of 16 mm short films.^[14]

As an actor, Winter spent many years on Broadway with supporting roles in productions ofThe King and I,Peter Pan, and the American premiere ofSimon Gray'sClose of Play at theManhattan Theatre Club.^[15]

Winter dropped out of NYU film school before his senior year and moved to Hollywood, where he began to write and direct a number of short films and music videos. Winter continued to find work as an actor, making his feature film acting debut in the 1985 filmDeath Wish 3. He would go on to have notable roles in such big productions asThe Lost Boys (1987)^[2] andRosalie Goes Shopping (1989)^[16]

In 1989, Winter found international success when he co-starred withKeanu Reeves, playing William "Bill" S. Preston Esq. in the smash-hit comedyBill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, a role he reprised in its 1991 sequel,Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.^[17]

Following the success ofBill & Ted, Winter and creative collaborators Tom Stern and Tim Burns were hired to develop a sketch comedy show for MTV. The result, 1991'sThe Idiot Box, was canceled after six episodes. Winter, Stern and Burns accepted a $12 million deal from20th Century Fox with Winter and Stern jointly making their feature film directorial debut and Winter starring in the 1993 science-fiction comedyFreaked. The film was never widely released, despite positive reviews fromThe New York Times andEntertainment Weekly.^[18] It has since become a minor cult favourite.^[19]

Winter did not return to directing until 1999, when he filmed the psychological thrillerFever which starredHenry Thomas in the lead role. The film was shown at film festivals worldwide, including Official Selection in the Director's Fortnight atCannes. TheNew York Daily News praised the film, calling it "a claustrophobic mind bender. Winter sustains an aura of creepiness worthy ofRoman Polanski."

After a seven year hiatus, Winter directed and acted in thelive-action adaptation of the hitCartoon Network seriesBen 10, which aired on Cartoon Network in November 2007 and garnered the highest ratings in the channel's history. He also directed its sequel,Ben 10: Alien Swarm, which aired on Cartoon Network in November 2009 and captured over 16 million viewers in its premiere weekend. As of 2008, he was attached to write the screenplay for theHoward Stern-produced remake ofRock 'n' Roll High School.^[20] In 2010, he was attached to direct a 3D-remake of the 1987 horror filmThe Gate, which was scheduled for release in 2011 but the film was never made.^[21]

Winter's 2012 VH1 rock docDownloaded earned worldwide critical acclaim at theatrical and festival screenings. Winter's multiple award-winning 2015 documentaryDeep Web had its world premiere at SXSW and a broadcast premiere in the U.S. on the Epix network alongside a global festival tour. The film went wide in September 2015, opening as the #1 documentary on iTunes.

In 2013, he featured in the thrillerGrand Piano, starringElijah Wood andJohn Cusack, in his first major feature film role after 20 years.^[22]

In 2016, Winter released a short documentary entitledRelatively Free^[23] about journalistBarrett Brown's release from prison. This was followed in 2017 by another short documentary,Trump's Lobby^[24]

In 2018, Winter released two documentaries,The Panama Papers, about thePanama Papers, andTrust Machine: The Story of Blockchain, which premiered in Los Angeles on November 16, 2018.^[25][26] In July 2015, Winter began work on a biographical documentary of the rock guitarist and composerFrank Zappa. The Zappa Family Trust publicly gave its approval to Winter's plans for the film.^[27] Released on November 27, 2020,Zappa was the first documentary with access to his archives, and was the highest funded documentary in crowdfunding history, viaKickstarter.^[28]

In April 2011, Winter'sBill & Ted co-star Keanu Reeves confirmed that a third installment of the film series was under way; the film was in development for most of the 2010s.^[29][30][31] Winter returned as Bill Preston in the film,Bill & Ted Face the Music, which was released on August 28, 2020;^[32] with Reeves describing the plot as, "Basically, they're supposed to write a song to save the world and they haven't done that."^[33] In January 2024, Alex hinted about a possibility of a 4th film "Bill & Ted 4".^[34]

Winter’s feature documentaryThe YouTube Effect, was produced in 2022 by Winter and his company, Trouper Productions, in partnership withGale Anne Hurd andGlen Zipper. The film premiered at Tribeca in June 2022, completed a sold-out theatrical run in July 2023, and was released worldwide on digital from Drafthouse Films on August 8, 2023.^[35]

In 2024, Winter produced and co-starred in the gonzo horror-comedyDestroy All Neighbors which premiered onShudder and in limited theaters in January 2024.

In 2025, Winter produced, directed and starred in the feature filmAdulthood,^[36] which is set to release in 2025. In the fall of 2025, Winter will return to Broadway, co-starring withKeanu Reeves inWaiting For Godot, directed byJamie Lloyd.^[37]

Winter began devoting a lot of his attention to the internet not just because he liked technology, but also because "I found this community there." Winter liked the idea of large numbers of anonymous users discussing a variety of topics in an anonymous space. "I found that really striking then. And it seemed liked the beginning of something." He has criticized media companies and news outlets for exaggerating how many people used Napster fordigital piracy.

Winter's interest in technology, the Internet and privacy inspired him to make the 2012 documentary filmDownloaded, about internetfile sharing and Napster, and the 2015 filmDeep Web, about theSilk Road,bitcoin, and thedark web.^[32]

In response to the political activities ofElon Musk and theDepartment of Government Efficiency, in February 2025, Winter helped amplify nationalTesla Takedown protests outside ofTesla showrooms. He has stated that the intention was to be anti-Elon Musk and not Tesla. Winter, an avid electric vehicle owner, called Musk a “toxic figurehead” for the company and had a goal for Tesla to part ways with Musk.^[38][39][40]

Winter was married to Sonya Dawson, with whom he had a son, born in 1998. The couple later divorced. In 2010, he marriedRamsey Ann Naito. They have two children.^[41]Winter maintains dual British and American citizenship.^[42]

In 2018, Winter revealed that he suffered "intense and prolonged"child sexual abuse^[43] at the hands of an older man while acting on Broadway.^[44] Winter refused to name his abuser, stating he is deceased. He has said that he experiencedPTSD due to the abuse, saying, "I had extreme PTSD for many, many years, and that will wreak havoc on you."^[43][32]

In September 2025, Winter signed an open pledge with Film Workers for Palestine pledging not to work with Israeli film institutions "that are implicated ingenocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people."^[45]

Directing

Acting

Directing

Acting

• Official website
• Alex Winter atIMDb
• Alex Winter at theInternet Broadway Database

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