Ilan Mitchell-Smith was born in New York City and began studying ballet at an early age. After his family relocated to Amherst, Massachusetts, he was enrolled in dance classes four days a week and eventually got a scholarship with the School of American Ballet. While at the ballet, he was discovered by a casting agent for director Sidney Lumet and was signed to play Timothy Hutton's character as a young boy in the film, Daniel (1983). That led to a major role in The Wild Life (1984) in which he played a young man who had a romanticized notion of the '60s, a part that required a lot of research into the milieu of the times.

Son, Asher, born 2000.Daughter, Eloise, born 1998.In addition to his education at Texas A&M, he also holds a B.A. in medieval studies from University of California at Davis and an M.A. from Fordham University in New York.When he and his wife, Susannah, were dating, he never told her of his previous acting career. But he confessed after finding out that, coincidentally, one of her favorite movies was The Chocolate War (1988), which Ilan had starred in.His mother is a psychotherapist based in Hawaii, his father is an art history professor in Massachusetts, and his sister, Natania, is an artist living in England.Met his wife at Santa Monica Junior College.Moved to Texas in 1998.