Born in Pittsburgh, Bartok moved with his family to Manhattan when he was nine. By age 12 he was taking acting lessons at the HB Studio. He was 13 when he made his professional acting debut, appearing in a WonderWorks episode entitled Almost Partners (PBS, 1987).
In the 1990s, his TV appearances included an ABC unsold pilot entitled Coconut Downs, a recurring role on the Judith Ivey sitcom Down Home (NBC, 1991), an episode of NBC's Law & Order, and the pilot episode of its spinoff Criminal Intent. More recently, Bartok played a naive prisoner in the 1996 TNT miniseries Andersonville.
Bartok has also appeared on stage playing a victim of abuse in Dalton's Back off-Broadway at Circle Repertory Company when he was 16 years old.
His feature film work began in 1991 when he played a street punk harassing Robin Williams in The Fisher King. He went on to play Bob Hoskins' nephew in Passed Away (1992) and had small roles in both School Ties (1992) and Swing Kids (1993). Notable recent roles include a cameo in Spider-Man, and leading roles in the soon-to-be released features The Tollbooth, Red Doors, and Tempting Adam for the Oxygen Network.
Red Doors won the NY, NY Best Narrative Feature Award at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival, a special grand jury prize for ensemble at CineVegas in Las Vegas 2005, and the audience award at 2005's Outfest in LA. He is the voice of Robert Redford's "The Sundance Channel".
The Cake Eaters marks Jayce's screenwriting debut, and he has just written and directed his first short film called "Stricken", starring Hayley Mills. "Stricken" premiered at the Vail Film Festival in April 2005, and was an official selection at the Memphis Film Festival in a month later. Jayce's most recent project is a documentary co-directed with Tiffany Bartok called Altered By Elvis which will debut at the Memphis International Film Festival in 2006.
