Background
Merriman was born in Choctaw, Oklahoma, the son of Earl and Nonalyn Merriman.
Merriman was born in Choctaw, Oklahoma, the son of Earl and Nonalyn Merriman.
He began his career at the age of ten, and has appeared in several feature films and television shows. He is best known for portraying Jake in The Ring Two (2005) and Kevin Fischer in Final Destination 3 (2006). He has a sister named Monica.
At a young age, he began acting in commercials, print work, vocal performances, and local theater (Stage Struck Studios) in Oklahoma.
Merriman"s first major role was on the television series The Mommies, which ran from 1993 to 1995. During the 1990s, he appeared in most episodes of The Pretender as a younger version of the title character.
He has starred in several television films, including Smart House, The Luck of the Irish, and as a young Meyer Lansky in Lansky. He appeared in the 1999 feature film The Deep End of the Ocean, playing the lost son of Michelle Pfeiffer"s character, and subsequently starred as the main character, a Jewish boy from the Bronx, in the film 2000 Just Looking.
In 2002, he played Adam Eddington in another Disney Channel original movie, A Ring of Endless Light.
He then returned to television roles, appearing in Dangerous Child, Taken, and Smallville. Merriman"s other roles include the horror films Halloween: Resurrection (2002), The Ring Two (2005), and Final Destination 3 (2006). He starred in Home of the Giants, a high school drama.
He appeared in the Columbia Broadcasting System miniseries Comanche Moon in January 2008.
He played Henry Dunn in the original pilot presentation for Harper"s Island, but was replaced by Christopher Gorham when the series was picked up by Columbia Broadcasting System. From 2010 to 2012, Merriman portrayed Ian Thomas on American Broadcasting Company Family"s Pretty Little Liars. In 2012, he starred as Dennis Mack in the 16th episode of Season 2 in Hawaii Five-0.
Dwight H. Little wanted Merriman to play Jin Kazama in his film Tekken, but Merriman turned it down. He starred in the Hallmark Channel original movie Elevator Girl as Jonathan, a successful young lawyer who finds himself falling for a free-spirited young woman who is way below his pay grade.
In 2011, he appeared as linebacker Jon Abbate in The 5th Quarter, a film about the 2006 football season of Wake Forest University.
