Jason Earles

Born in San Diego, California, Jason Earles is the middle of five children. His mother’s name is Jenny. Growing up, he spent parts of his childhood in Ohio and Washington State before finally moving to Oregon with his family. He was educated at ‘Glencoe High School’ in Hillsboro from where he graduated in 1995. After that, he relocated to Billings, Montana to attend ‘Rocky Mountain College’. He received his college degree in 2000.

Earles met his former wife Jennifer while they both were in college. They got married in 2002. They split in 2012 and the divorce was finalised in 2013. They have a daughter together, named Noah. Earles started dating Katie Drysen in January 2013. Drysen announced their engagement through her Instagram account on November 14, 2016.

After completing high school, Jason Earles toured with the prestigious ‘Montana Shakespeare in the Parks’ theater company, playing Feste and Sebastian in the productions of ‘Twelfth Night’ and ‘The Tempest’ respectively. He portrayed Alan Strang in ‘Equus’ after coming to an agreement with the former theater director Gerry Roe at ‘Rocky Mountain College’ not to cut his nude scene.

In 2003, He appeared in the season two episode of ‘The Shield’, ‘Breakpoint’, and in an uncredited role on ‘Malcolm in the Middle’. A year after that he did the short film, ‘Table 6’. He was featured as a guest star on ‘Still Standing’ (2004) and ‘One on One’ (2005). His first collaboration with Disney occurred with the science fiction sitcom, ‘Phil of the Future’, in which he played the recurring character Grady Spaggett. In 2005, he was cast as Ernie in ‘American Pie Presents: Band Camp’, the first of the direct-to-video spin-offs of the ‘American Pie’ films. He participated in the 2006 ‘Disney Channel Games’ as one of the members of the Blue Team, and then again the next year as a member of the Red Team.

Earles was 29 when he landed his breakthrough role, that of 16-year-old Jackson Stewart in the Disney Channel series ‘Hannah Montana.’ Often described as laid back, casual, and lazy, Jackson moves to Malibu, California with his father Robby (Billy Ray Cyrus) and younger sister Miley (Miley Cyrus) from Tennessee, after his mother’s passing. Earles portrayed the character throughout the entire four-season run of the show. He reprised the role in the 2009 release ‘Hannah Montana: The Movie’.

In 2006, he served as one of the hosts of ‘New Year Sing-A-Long Bowl-A-Thon!’ He voiced Guy and SheZow on the episode ‘SheZow’ of Disney’s animated anthology series ‘Shorty McShorts' Shorts’ in 2007. He guest-starred on David E. Kelley’s ‘Boston Legal’ as Mitchy Weston in 2008. In the following year, he provided voice for the family comedy film ‘Space Buddies’. Earles was the co-host alongside Tiffany Thornton for ‘Disney's Friends for Change Games.’

His second major role on Disney was that of Rudy, the martial arts instructor on ‘Kickin’ It’, which premiered on June 13, 2011. It ended on March 25, 2015, after airing 84 episodes. Earles also directed and co-produced several episodes of the show. He worked on the web series ‘WTH: Welcome to Howler’ in 2016. He is set to appear in the Mitch Gould directorial venture ‘Battle of the Drones’, and the family adventure film ‘Mission Possible’. Both features are at pre-production stage as of June 2017.

Initially, in his resume Earles stated that he was born on April 26, 1985. Even an article ran by ‘Houston Chronicle’ on July 15, 2007, reported him to be 19 years old. It was later revealed that his birth year is 1977, and there are speculations that his youthful appearance is due to a rare genetic hormonal condition called ‘Kallmann Syndrome’, which is characterised by a delay or absence of signs of puberty.

Earles and Drysen have two cats, named Donut and Zeke.

He is a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

He won an AMTC award for cold reading.