Why George Bell From Them Looks So Familiar
Starting April 9, 2021, Amazon Prime Video will release a brand-new anthology series called Them. The show is set to explore the horrors in America, starting with the storyline in season 1. It centers on a Black family, who are moving into an all-white neighborhood in Los Angeles, CA, during a period in America called The Great Migration. Their perfect new home becomes a hot spot for supernatural forces that are both out of this world and right next door. As these forces and the next door neighbors bully, taunt, and threaten the Emory family to re-think their move, viewers might notice a few familiar faces in the season's trailer.
New director Little Marvin has cast familiar faces such as Shahadi Wright Joseph from Us, Deborah Ayorinde from Girls Trip, and Alison Pill from Star Trek: Picard, but sometimes, a famous face doesn't come to mind that quickly. Halfway through the trailer, viewers may spot an actor who looks very familiar. In case you need a little help experiencing that "Aha!" moment, check out his extensive résumé below.
Ryan Kwanten's first big break came in the 1990s
Australian actor Ryan Kwanten has been in the acting industry since 1992, when he was just a teenager. Throughout the 1990s, Kwanten hopped around the TV industry, gaining acting experience where he could. His first appearance was in a TV series called A Country Practice, which led him to his breakout role on the popular Australian soap opera Home and Away as Vinnie Patterson.
The show follows the residents of Summer Bay, a fictional town in New South Wales, and focuses on the Fletcher family, who take in five foster kids. Kwanten stayed on the show until 2002, for a total of 223 episodes. Home and Away is one of Australia's most successful shows and has won a ton of Logie Awards. To add to its accolades, the show is still airing today, which makes it one of the longest-running Australian TV series ever.
Ryan Kwanten found more TV work in the early 2000s as Jay in Summerland
In 2003, Ryan Kwanten took on his first film role (other than TV movies), starring in Liquid Bridge. The next year, he had a lead role in 2004's America Brown, which brought him to his first major U.S. TV series gig, Summerland. Even though the WB show found success, it only ran for two seasons from 2004 to 2005.
Kwanten portrayed Jay Robertson, one of the series' main characters, who plays the "big brother" role to Bradin Westerly (Jesse McCartney), Nikki Westerley (Kay Panabaker), and Derrick Westerly (Nick Benson). After losing their parents, the Westerley kids move from Kansas to Playa Linda, CA, to live with their aunt, Ava (Lori Loughlin), in her shared beach house with her on/off-again boyfriend Johnny Durant (Shawn Christian), her best friend Susannah Rexford (Merrin Dungey), and her business partner, Jay.
Ryan Kwanten appeared in the horror flick Dead Silence
Up until this point, Ryan Kwanten was taking relatively lighthearted roles and didn't stray too far from the drama genre, but in 2007, he took a starring role in the well-loved horror thriller Dead Silence, directed by James Wan. He played the role of Jamie Ashen, a newly married man who suddenly loses his wife under horrific and mysterious circumstances. He returns to the town of Ravens Fair for her funeral, and to unravel the truth that surrounds her mysterious death.
Unbeknownst to Jamie, the town has an infamous curse involving a ventriloquist named Mary Shaw (Judith Roberts), who may have a lot to do with his wife's death. Jamie realizes that Shaw and her collection of dolls have returned to seek vengeance on the ancestors of those who used to mock her, and he's caught in the middle of it.
Dead Silence didn't do as well as Wan had hoped, only grossing $16.8 million domestically. The film's estimated production budget was $20 million.
In 2013, Ryan Kwanten starred in an Adi Shankar Marvel short which created a lot of buzz
In 2013, producer Adi Shankar, who also had a hand in the short The Punisher: Dirty Laundry, delved back into the comic book world and produced the fan film Venom: Truth in Journalism, a short that takes place in the Spider-Man universe. The film was written and directed by Joe Lynch and stars Ryan Kwanten as Eddie Brock, a notorious journalist. The short centers on a French documentary crew who is there under the guise of highlighting Brock's career, when really, they've come to find out the true details behind Brock's firing from the Daily Bugle. What they wish to find and what they do find are two different avenues, one of which they probably don't want to go down.
This adaptation stayed true to the comics and created a ton of buzz for the storyline and paying homage to the source material. Kwanten's rendition of Brock is spot-on. Venom: Truth in Journalism received positive ratings.
Ryan Kwanten's most well-known role in the U.S. is Jason Stackhouse in True Blood
Amid his breakout roles in the movie industry, Ryan Kwanten was also filming his most iconic role of all as Jason Stackhouse in HBO's True Blood. From 2008 to 2014, Kwanten would play the goofy playboy and brother of Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), a waitress at the local small-town bar who falls in love with a 173-year-old vampire named Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer). Kwanten would play the role of Jason Stackhouse all the way to the final season in 2014. According to Esquire, True Blood is one of the best HBO series of all time, which speaks volumes to its success.
Once True Blood wrapped up, Kwanten continued finding roles in movies such as Northmen – A Viking Saga, Reach Me, and Blunt Force Trauma. Beginning inn 2018, he had an 18-episode run on The Oath and played the role of Peter in the TV series Sacred Lies. Up until his role in the highly anticipated anthology series Them, Ryan Kwanten has had quite the acting career, and hopefully, he continues to do so.