All About Mike Faist's Parents, Julia and Kurt Faist

The 'Challengers' actor was raised in Ohio by his parents Julia and Kurt Faist

Mike Faist’s parents supported his career at a young age.

Born on Jan. 5, 1992, the Challengers actor was welcomed through adoption by his parents Julia and Kurt Faist, who raised him in Gahanna, Ohio.

Falling in love with acting and dancing at a young age, Faist later moved to New York after graduating high school to pursue a career in theater.

After appearing in Newsies on Broadway, Faist got his big break when he originated the role of Connor Murphy in Dear Evan Hansen, which earned him a Tony nomination for best actor in a featured role in a musical.

Since then, Faist has been dominating the screen with starring roles in Steven Spielberg's West Side Story and recently, Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers opposite Zendaya and Josh O'Connor.

Here’s everything Faist has said about his parents and their support through the years.

He was adopted

Faist has often spoken about his childhood with his parents, Julia and Kurt, and shared that he also has a relationship with his birth mother, whom he met shortly before he moved to New York when he was about 17.

“She’s got two young boys who are not so young anymore; they’re both men in college now. I was trying to develop a relationship with them,” Faist told Interview Magazine in 2017.

Following his role in Newsies, he told the publication, he visited his birth mother’s family — "a family of pilots" — and was eventually inspired to get his own pilot’s license. “Now we bond as a family in a way, there,” he added.

He grew up in Ohio

Faist was born and raised in Gahanna, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. Speaking with Another Magazine, the actor reflected on going back home after making it big in Hollywood. “There’s something very humbling about coming back to Ohio,” he told the publication, “about going off and working with Steven Spielberg, and then coming back here.”

That's in large part because his relationship to his family and friends hasn't changed since he hit it big: “My friends are super supportive and they’re super proud, but at the end of the day, I’m still just Mike to them, which is great."

His parents instilled his love for movies at a young age

Speaking with Interview Magazine, Faist said the old MGM films his parents had around the house played a role in his love for cinema.

“My parents just happened to have a bunch of VHS tapes lying around; we had Singing in the Rain, we had American in Paris, we had Fred Astaire movies. It’s like TV babysitting, where they say, ‘Here, go watch something, kid. Stop buggin’ me,’” he joked.

“They would sit me in front of the TV and Gene Kelly would be on and I’d be like, ‘Holy crap, this guy’s a magician!’” he continued, noting that he was “very imaginative as a kid” growing up and the movies he watched further influenced that: “Movies in general were a huge part of my upbringing.”

He “forced” his parents to get him into dance classes

And watching those tapes did more than give him a love of movies — it inspired him to sing, dance and act himself. “Gene Kelly was definitely the guy, I think, that I wanted to emulate when I was a kid,” he told Interview Magazine.

“I forced my parents to get me into dance class; I started auditioning for community theater and children’s theater in Ohio,” he added of his theater beginnings. “Those films were definitely the reason for my interest in getting into theater in general.”

He worked for his parents’ real estate business

When he wasn’t watching classic films or getting involved in local theater, Faist was busy helping his parents with their real estate business. The actor told Interview Magazine that he spent much of his summers doing construction work for the family business.

His father helped him move to New York City

After graduating from high school early, Faist moved to N.Y.C. to pursue a career in theater when he was 17. For the special move, the actor got help from his father, who drove 10 hours to the Big Apple from Ohio.

“I was terrified,” he remembered. “So was my dad. But I knew I wanted to do this more than anything in the world.”

He moved back to Ohio before his dad died

In February 2021, Faist returned to Ohio to be closer to his family after his father Kurt got sick, according to Another Magazine. On Dec. 12, 2023, his father died of a blood clot, following a three-year battle with pulmonary fibrosis. 

Speaking with the publication, Faist’s aunts spoke fondly of Kurt, noting how he “h​​ad the best laugh” and an incredible sense of humor. “No matter what he went through,” his sister Cheri said, “that guy could laugh and make us laugh when we came down to see him after the surgeries. A couple of times we were crying because he would get us laughing so hard about old memories.”

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