Everything You Need To Know About Tye Sheridan
This content was paid for by Quibi and created by Looper.
As its first year on the market starts to wind down, Quibi's digital library is only getting bigger with a wide array of content for subscribers to enjoy. The streamer's library — which features everything from revivals like the seventh season of Reno 911! to adaptations like Most Dangerous Game, based on the 1924 short story by Richard Connell – includes some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry, like Sophie Turner, Kevin Hart, and Liam Hemsworth. One of Quibi's upcoming offerings, the survival thriller series Wireless, is no different — boasting an all-star cast that will surely make it a huge hit.
Relatively fresh faces including Lukas Gage and Francesca Reale round out the supporting cast, but the poster boy of Wireless is Tye Sheridan. On the series, executive-produced by Ocean's Eleven director Steven Soderbergh, Sheridan stars as 20-year-old Andy Braddock, who's stranded on the side of the road in snowy Colorado on New Year's Eve following a car accident. He's armed only with his wits and his dying cell phone, but it'll take more than that to save the badly wounded protagonist.
Those familiar with Sheridan's previous work should be excited for Wireless, as it's another chance for him to prove why he's such a hot commodity these days. For those who've yet to see the 23-year-old do what he does best in front of the camera, you'll definitely want to check out Wireless when it hits the streaming platform on Monday, September 14, 2020.
In the meantime, to get you up to speed on Wireless' leading man, here's everything you need to know about Tye Sheridan.
Tye Sheridan comes from humble beginnings
Tye Sheridan was born in Palestine, Texas on November 11, 1996 to parents Stephanie and Bryan Sheridan, a salon owner and a UPS driver, respectively. He also has a younger sister named Madison, rounding out his average, middle-class American family. Sheridan lived in his hometown until "about 15 or 16," when he shifted his focus to acting and began "traveling and working quite a bit" (via W Magazine).
Sheridan's opportunity to break into the mainstream came in 2011 when, following a lengthy audition process, he beat out over 10,000 other kids to earn a spot in Terrance Malick's experimental project The Tree of Life. Then 15 years old, Sheridan got the chance to work alongside bonafide stars like Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and Jessica Chastain while earning valuable experience as part of a major motion picture. The movie went on to receive great acclaim at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d'Or — a major feather in the cap of all involved. Seemingly overnight, Sheridan went from just another Texas boy to a rising star in Hollywood.
Tye Sheridan has accumulated an impressive filmography very quickly
Despite becoming a household name rather recently, Sheridan has already taken part in more than 20 feature films in the past nine years. After The Tree of Life, Sheridan appeared alongside Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon in 2012's Jeff Nichols-directed feature Mud, which turned out to be a critical and commercial success. He later starred as Eddie the Opener in the drama film Entertainment, as Peter Mitchell in director Kyle Patrick Alvarez's chilling docu-drama The Stanford Prison Experiment, and as Son in the Ewan McGregor-starring drama Last Days in the Desert to his resume — proving himself a capable hand in dramatic stories, no matter the size of his part.
While drama is undoubtedly Sheridan's bread and butter, he's moved away from it more than a few times to test the waters in different genres. In 2015, Sheridan took on a small role in the neo-noir mystery Dark Places, and then played the lead in the zombie comedy Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse that same year. Adding some diversity to his portfolio was a smart move, as it paved the way for a wider range of jobs and aided Sheridan in sharpening his acting skills in a variety of settings.
Tye Sheridan is best known as young Cyclops in the X-Men franchise
As with most actors nowadays, a run in the Marvel universe is bound to happen at one point or another. For Sheridan, he's already dipped his toe into the superhero pool through Fox's X-Men series (based on Marvel's X-Men comics), in which he played Scott Summers, better known as Cyclops. James Marsden portrayed the mutant initially, but when executives at the studio (now owned by Marvel Studios' parent company Disney) decided it was time for a soft reboot of the film series, they aged down a slew of their characters, meaning recasts were in order. This paved the way for Sheridan to sign on, debuting in 2016's X-Men: Apocalypse and then returning for 2019's Dark Phoenix. (Sheridan even made a cameo as Cyclops in 2018's Deadpool.)
He proved himself an excellent choice to take up the visor, putting a new spin on the typically stern and mature character. He played young Summers in a shy and uncertain way that made sense, given he's just a kid trying to harness his abilities and isn't yet prepared to lead the X-Men. This was a huge responsibility to put on the actor's shoulders, and he certainly made the most of it — it's just a shame he didn't have a longer stint to flesh out his version of Cyclops.
Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One proved Tye Sheridan can lead blockbusters
While being a pivotal part of a Marvel Comics adaptation is huge, it doesn't get much bigger than working with Steven Spielberg, which Sheridan jumped at the chance to do. After the project spent nearly a decade in development hell, the veteran filmmaker prepared to officially adapt the 2011 Ernest Cline novel Ready Player One to the big screen — but he wasn't going to settle for just anyone to play the lead. Although Spielberg reportedly wanted an unknown actor to portray Wade Watts (aka Parzival), the director's search yielded poor results, so he brought in Sheridan for what would become his biggest credit to date.
Ready Player One was released on March 29, 2018, and enjoyed a highly successful theatrical run — bringing in over $582 million worldwide. Spielberg's name and the innumerable '80s references likely helped bring folks into the cinema, but Sheridan's performance as Wade deserves a lot of the credit as well. He made the character his own and proved himself worthy as one of the faces of 2018's summer blockbuster season. As evident by his growing list of accolades, it's becoming clear that Sheridan is a name everyone should keep an eye on in the coming years.
Catch Tye Sheridan in his newest project, Wireless, when it debuts on Quibi on Monday, September 14, 2020.