Background
Sumpter was born in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, to Sandy (née Johnson) and Gary Sumpter. He has a twin sister, Jessica, and two other siblings, Owen (from his mother"s previous marriage) and Jennifer. His family moved to his mother"s hometown, Mount Sterling, Kentucky, when he was ten months old.
Career
His prominent roles include the title role in the 2003 live action film Peter Pan, Jacob in 2014 disaster film Into the Storm, and the recurring role of J. Doctorate. McCoy in the National Broadcasting Company television series Friday Night Lights (2008–2010). When Sumpter was 11, he entered International Modeling and Talent Association and started his modeling in Kentucky. Sumpter then decided to move back to Los Angeles, California with his family and start acting afterwards.
Sumpter"s first movie role was in the 2001 film Frailty as the young Adam Mieks seen in flashbacks (played as an adult by the film"s star Matthew McConaughey).
His next film was Local Boys, a family surfing drama, with Mark Harmon and Eric Christian Olsen. In July 2002, at age 13, Sumpter was selected for the role of Peter Pan.
Sumpter did nearly all of his stunts for the film himself. To prepare, he says he practiced sword fighting as much as five hours a day, as well as training in gymnastics and lifting weights.
While filming in Australia, he supplemented his training with cricket and surfing.
Sumpter grew several inches while in the film"s production, requiring staging tricks to retain Captain Hook"s height advantage over Peter in face-to-face scenes late in the process. In the fall of 2004 he starred in the television series Clubhouse as a boy who gets his dream job of working as a batboy for a New York City major league baseball team The series was canceled by Columbia Broadcasting System after five episodes.
All 11 episodes made have since been broadcast on cable/satellite channels.
He then starred in Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life, a Lifetime Channel movie about a popular teenager whose life is ruined by an addiction to internet pornography. Sumpter spent the summer of 2005 in Oregon filming the teen comedy The Sasquatch Gang (aka The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang), released in November 2006.
He had a small role in the film An American Crime, which played on Showtime in 2008 before going to Digital Video Disc. He appeared in an episode of Computer Society of India: Miami as the boyfriend of a girl whose parents are murdered. He completed filming roles in the coming-of-age comedy Calvin Marshall, the family comedy You"re So Cupid, Soul Surfer and Death and Cremation.
Sumpter was a co-host on The YOBI Show, an online reality contest show, with Danielle Ryan.
He appeared in the meteorological disaster film Into the Storm as Jacob Hodges, a young cameraman for the stormchasers.