Clayton Snyder

Clayton Snyder was born on September 9, 1987, in Long Beach, California. He is of German and Italian heritage. His initial acting experiences included leading roles in elementary school plays, where he portrayed characters such as Mark Twain in *Tom Sawyer* and The Tin Man in *The Wizard of Oz*. Alongside his early theatrical endeavors, Snyder was active in sports, notably swimming for the Seal Beach Swim Club and playing water polo for the Seal Beach Water Polo Club from the age of eight. He also explored music, learning the alto saxophone and later guitar, and took lessons in voice, tap and jazz dancing, and cotillion.

Snyder began auditioning for professional acting roles in Hollywood during his time at McAuliff Middle School. In his second year, he secured the recurring role of Ethan Craft in the Disney Channel series *Lizzie McGuire*, which ran for two years. During this period, he continued his education in Orange County and participated in club water polo, earning the Jody Campbell Award for skill, sportsmanship, and teamwork with the SOCAL Water Polo Club in 2001. Filming for *The Lizzie McGuire Movie* in Rome, Italy, and Vancouver, Canada, led him to temporarily step back from water polo during his freshman year of high school. Following this, he decided to concentrate on his academic and athletic pursuits, achieving All-County in Orange County, MPSF Player of the Year, and CIF Co-Player of the Year during his high school water polo career, which included a CIF Southern Section Division 2 Championship win in his junior year.

Clayton Snyder accepted a water polo scholarship to Pepperdine University, where he started all four years and served as captain in his junior and senior years. The team achieved a 2nd place national finish in 2004, and Snyder received an All-American Honorable Mention. He graduated with honors in 2010 with a BA in Film Studies. After university, he pursued professional water polo, training with the USA National Water Polo Team during the summer and playing professionally in Italy, Hungary, and Montenegro. In 2011, he competed in the World University Games in Shenzhen, China, where his team placed 4th. Snyder has since returned to acting, working on various projects under Strong Management, and continues to play water polo recreationally in Masters tournaments for the International Water Polo Club of Los Alamitos, CA.