Keiynan Lonsdale
Keiynan Lonsdale is an actor, born 1991.
Keiynan Lonsdale was born in Sydney in 1991 and came up as a dancer, which is still the first thing you notice about him on screen. His breakthrough was Oliver Lloyd on the Australian series Dance Academy, a role he played across the series and again in the 2017 feature spin-off, and he worked as an MTV VJ around the same period.
The American career started with the Divergent films, where he played Uriah Pedrad in Insurgent and Allegiant, and then settled on The CW, where he was Wally West and Kid Flash across The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow. Superhero television is not usually where you look for acting, but the part suited him: Wally is defined by impatience, and Lonsdale plays impatience as physical restlessness rather than as attitude.
The role that changed his profile was Bram in Love, Simon, the 2018 teen romance, which he reprised in the series Love, Victor. It is a small part with a large job, since the whole film is pointed at him, and he holds the ending without overplaying it. Since then he has worked across dance films and light romantic comedy, Work It, Step Up, My Fake Boyfriend, plus the Australian series Eden. He also writes and records his own music and released a studio album in 2020. Fifteen catalogued credits is a short list for someone this recognisable, and the acting career has always run alongside the music rather than swallowing it.
Movies (8)
TV (7)
Where to start with Keiynan Lonsdale
Watch Love, Simon first, and go in without reading about it, because the film keeps one card face down for most of its length. It is also the best-made thing on his list by a distance.
Then The Flash, where you can pick up from his first season rather than the start of the series, and where his Kid Flash is the most likeable thing in a show that was starting to sag. Love, Victor extends the Love, Simon world and gives him more to do than the film did. Beyond that, Dance Academy is the origin and genuinely good teen drama rather than a curiosity, Insurgent is franchise filler that he survives, and Work It is the one that finally uses the dancing, which is what he was hired for in the first place.