Who is Joel David Moore? Net Worth, Divorce, Facts

• Joel David Moore is a 42 year-old actor and director born in Portland, Oregon, USA.
• He has had a successful acting career since 1996 and has directed six of his own films.
• He is most famously known for his role in the revolutionary film, Avatar.
• His estimated net worth is over $4 million.
• He is active on social media, with almost 5,000 Facebook fans, 65,000 Twitter followers, and nearly 30,000 Instagram followers.

Known for movies

Avatar (2009)
as Norm Spellman

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)
as Owen

Grandma's Boy (2006)
as J.P.

Youth in Oregon (2016)
as Director

Who is Joel David Moore?

Born under the sign of Libra on the 25^th of September 1977, in Portland, Oregon USA, of English, Scottish, German and Irish descent, Joel David Moore is a Caucasian actor and director. He is probably most familiar to the world thanks to his frequent exposure on television, and across other media outlets, in great part due to the roles he has had, and the subsequent popularity of the films he’s featured in. He’s had a great number of successes over the course of his acting career since 1996.

Early life and education: The star of the family

Joel was raised alongside his younger brother Adam in their place of birth, by his father John Moore, and his mother Missy Moore, née Irvine .

The family’s home was located in the Mount Tabor neighborhood of Southeast Portland, where Joel spent the majority of his early years. Regarding the interests he had during childhood, Moore hasn’t divulged much on this topic, but looking at his education, the fans have concluded that Joel David initially desired a job of a highly technical nature, which later changed to performance arts as he grew into adolescence. As for his education, the popular actor first attended Benson Polytechnic High School in his birth city, from where he matriculated in 1995. He afterwards enrolled into Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, but had a change of heart two years later, thus transferred to Southern Oregon University in Ashland, graduating from there in 2001 with a bachelor of fine arts degree in performing arts.

Career: Theater before television

Joel’s first acting experience took place one year after he finished high school, at which point he appeared in the film entitled “Foxfire”. He put his career on hold until graduation, and then performed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival twice, in 2001 and 2002, meanwhile also having starred in two episodes of “City Guys”, “P.O.D.: Youth of the Nation” (2001), and “Boston Public” (2001 and 2002). He resumed the latter year with three more roles, in “Boomtown”, “Providence” and “Deep Cover”. The year 2003 proved highly successful for the auspicious actor at the time, with five additional roles under his belt. Moore went into 2004 and 2005 with the same tempo, being featured in another five titles per year.

In 2006, Joel had his first directing experience as well, having worked on the short film entitled “Miles from Home”, alongside six more roles, followed up by another five in 2007, and his first directing credit – for the feature film entitled “Spiral”. Joel was seen in another seven roles in 2008, and entered 2009 as the director of the short film entitled “Byron Phillips: Found”, but that wasn’t his greatest success at the time.

Becoming a legend

Besides another five, in comparison minor roles, Joel’s acting potential peaked in 2009 when he got to portray Norm Spellman in the legendary James Cameron action adventure fantasy 3D film, at the time completely revolutionary, entitled “Avatar”. Following the film’s massive success, Joel became even more popular, earning himself a spot among highly respected actors and later directors with this achievement.

Considering the fact that “Avatar” is the second highest grossing film of all time  – $2.790 billion, only $6 million behind “Avengers: Endgame” – it can be concluded that this is probably the highest contribution to Joel’s net worth. He continued his career, landing four on-screen appearances in 2010, one of them being his continued participation as Keith Bruning, whom he portrayed the previous year as well in “Medium”. He also directed another short film that year, entitled “Hours Before”.

Joel’s current decade

2011 was a boom year for Moore’s career, seeing as he had eight roles in rapid succession, some of the most notable being his voice lending in the “Family Guy” cartoon, and an appearance as Gordon in “Shark Night 3D”.

2012 went by as an even bigger achievement, at which point Joel landed ten roles, most famously the character of Craig in the crime thriller drama entitled “Savages”. He then took somewhat of a break from acting, with only four roles in 2013, one of them continuing as Doug in “Men at Work” from 2012. The year 2014 showed him on screen another four times, notably as Luke in “Grace: The Possession”, and as Lucas Wahl in 22 episodes of “Forever”, which continued into 2015. Joel had no roles in 2016, but his second directed feature film entitled “Youth in Oregon” was released. 2017 was the year when Moore starred in the last season of the highly popular TV series entitled “Bones”, in which he had been appearing intermittently over the years since 2008.

In 2018 he only appeared in one episode of “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”, but then two films in 2020, “Cut Throat City” and “The Morning After”, then in 2022 ” Daniel’s Gotta Die” and “Avatar, The Way of Water”. Most recently, he played Fitzsimmons in “The Retirement Plan”  (2023), and “Avatar” is in post production, for release in 2025.

He remains an actor and director

Since there are several more films he’s set to star in , it’s easy for the fans to think that he’s now fully devoted to acting. However, Joel is determined to also become a celebrated director, thus has two full-length movies – “Hide and Seek” (2021), which he wrote, directed and produced, and “Some Other Women” (2023) which he directed and produced.  To sum up his career so far, he’s acted in 79 titles, and directed six of his own.

Love life: His divorce – separating facts from fiction

When it comes to Joel’s romantic involvements, he hasn’t made much of an effort to keep this part of his life a secret, and so there’s a plenitude of information on the topic. His first known partner was Kineret Karen Ben Yishay, a woman of unknown ethnicity and profession, whom he is thought to have dated for at least a few years prior to marrying on New Year’s Eve in 2009.

View this post on Instagram

Shhh. It’s the Queens birthweek. – – I’m lucky to be in your stratosphere.

A post shared by Joel David Moore (@joeldavidmoore) on Jan 22, 2019 at 1:11pm PST

As reported by TMZ, though, it looks like the couple didn’t last longer than two and a half years, and so they divorced due to irreconcilable differences in June 2011. There were many rumors about his love life afterwards, but they all lost merit once he began publicly dating “Phil of the Future” actress Ally Michalka. They kept their dates a public matter most of the time, sharing love openly until 2013; sources can’t offer any insight into why they broke up. Some time afterwards, he started a relationship with “Almost Famous” star Kate Hudson, but they failed to last more than two months.

He’s been married to Katherine Elizabeth for about eight years,  and they have a son Oliver John Frederick born in 2017, and daughter Esme born in 2020. For whatever reason, other details of the relationship and family are difficult to find!

Joel’s awards and more facts about him

It’s surprising to some fans that Moore has thus far had only four nominations, two of which he won.

His first was the Gold Vision Award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival for his performance in “Spiral”. The second was the Razzle Award in the Worst Screen Couple category for “The Hottie & the Nottie”. His first unawarded nomination took place in 2005, – the MTV Movie Award in the Best On-Screen Team category for “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story”, and in 2016 he almost obtained the Best Feature award at the Anchorage International Film Festival, in the Narrative Feature Film category for his directing skills in “Youth in Oregon”. One more interesting detail about the famous actor/director, is that his brother Adam Moore possesses a high education too, being a graduate of North Park University in Chicago, Illinois. Also, his best friend is actor, producer and singer Zachary Levi, who has an equally impressive resume in the entertainment business.

Alemagou to you too! (Dad jokes on point don’t @ me) https://t.co/XMjET6gcdr pic.twitter.com/b5JIBA1aB6

— Joel David Moore (@joeldavidmoore) June 15, 2019

Have you ever taken a second to consider just how rich Joel could be, in the second half of 2019? Various sources with high credibility offer the estimate that his current wealth is close to $4 million, earned thanks to lending his invaluable acting and directing expertise to some of the most prominent titles to date, such as “Avatar”. Seeing as more sequels of the incredibly popular film are likely., Joel’s net worth will also likely increase.

Social media presence

So, how active do you think the popular actor could be on social media? Being a director and a seasoned Hollywood face, Joel is expected by both his colleagues and fans to constantly interact with the audiences on social media, thus exponentially increasing his profits in the long run. Joel seems to be very well aware of how this business model operates, and constantly shares information about his private and professional engagements with his faithful followers. He can be found on each of the three most popular social media networks – Twitter, Instagram, and his Facebook page has almost 5,000 fans.