Rider King Strong (born December 11, 1979) is an American film and television actor, best known for his role as Shawn Hunter on the 1990s sitcom Boy Meets World.
Rider King Strong was born in San Francisco, California to King Strong, a firefighter, and Lin Warner, a teacher and nutritionist. He graduated from Nonesuch School in Sebastopol, California in 1997. His brother is Shiloh Strong, an actor and writer.
Rider began his acting career at the young age of 9, when he starred as Gavroche in the San Francisco production of Les Misérables. After the stage production, Rider appeared in small screen roles on television. In 1992, he received his first regular television series role as Julie Andrews's son on Julie. When the series was canceled, Rider made his debut on film as Amy Irving's son in Benefit of the Doubt. It was not until he was chosen for the role of Shawn Hunter in the ABC series Boy Meets World that he received fame and recognition. During the seven year run he was nominated twice for the Young Artist Award and nominated for a Hollywood Reporter YoungStar Award. However, though he enjoyed the role of Shawn Hunter, Rider was continually perceived as "the Bad Boy." In the 2006 series Child Star Confidential, Rider revealed that a fan letter he received on the set of Boy Meets World, once asked him to murder someone for them. When the series ended, Rider returned to the big screen to star as Paul in the indie horror film Cabin Fever, directed by Eli Roth. In 2006, Rider returned to television for a regular series role in Pepper Dennis on the WB. The show was short-lived and was not chosen as one of the transferring shows to the The CW Television Network. Rider is currently working on Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, the sequel to Cabin Fever. It is slated to be released in 2008.
Along with his brother, Shiloh Strong, Rider wrote and directed the short film, Irish Twins, which premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.
In April 2008, Strong created a 30-second television ad in support of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, titled "It Could Happen to You." The ad, submitted to MoveOn.org, became one of 15 finalists from a pool of over 1,100 submitted ads, and was chosen as the funniest ad in May of 2008. In August, MoveOn raised $200,000 to air the the ad on MTV and Comedy Central; it was the first political commercial to ever appear on Comedy Central.
In May 2008, he began contributing pieces to will.i.am's site, Dipdive.
For a period of time, Rider dated actress Rachael Leigh Cook.
Rider writes poetry, his poems have appeared in several literary journals, including "Hidden Oak," "The Chiron Review" and "Poetry Motel." One of his poems was even incorporated into an episode of Boy Meets World.
In 2004, he graduated Magna Cum Laude from Columbia University as an English major. It was there, he wrote the foreword for fellow Columbian Steve Hofstetter's "Student Body Shots".
Strong remains good friends with his former Boy Meets World co-stars Danielle Fishel, Ben Savage and Will Friedle. He even guest starred in several episodes of Kim Possible, for which Friedle was a regular cast member.
