Season 3 of the hit Netflix thriller You follows newlyweds Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) and Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti) as they move to Madre Linda, a wealthy San Francisco suburb. Among their neighbors is Theo Engler, a college student whose father, tech mogul Matthew (Scott Speedman), lives next door. Theo ends up bonding with Love and developing feelings for her, which brings up some problems for the homicidal new mom.
Theo has won over fans as the charming boy-next-door, dealing with complicated relationships with both Love and his father. The teen is played by Dylan Arnold, an actor who has a history with both boyfriend roles and horror flicks. Here's everything we know about the rising star.
He grew up in Seattle and went to college in North Carolina.
The 27-year-old actor was born in February 1994 in Seattle, WA. According to Teen Vogue, Arnold used to run around the yard acting out the Lord of the Rings as a child. He graduated from a boarding school for the arts in Idyllwild, CA, and then studied acting at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
He's starred in horror flicks and romances.
Before landing You, Arnold got his first notable role in the Netflix film Mudbound in 2017, followed by roles in the shows Nashville and The Purge. He also had a role in the After movie series, which was loosely based on a popular Harry Styles fan fiction, as Tessa's uptight high school boyfriend Noah. He also stars alongside Jamie Lee Curtis in the reboot series of the horror franchise Halloween. The sequel Halloween Kills even released in theaters on the same day as You season 3.
He auditioned for two other roles on You before being cast as Theo.
In a Teen Vogue interview, Arnold revealed that he had auditioned for the show every season before the third time was the charm. He went for the part of Forty in season 2, and he even auditioned for Joe. He also had a personal connection at the start of the show; he went to college with Elizabeth Lail, who played Beck in season 1.
When asked why he kept auditioning, he said, "You is one of those shows that is just so well done and so well-executed and and so well-written that it feels like a great opportunity every time it comes around." He continued, "I feel like it’s a show that delivers every time, so of course I’d want to be part of it."
He and Victoria Pedretti had fun with their characters' age difference.
Although Arnold plays a 19-year-old college student, he's actually one year older than Victoria Pedretti, who plays Love. He told Teen Vogue that the pair had fun with their characters' age difference, citing the scene in Episode 6 where Theo holds a boombox playing Lorde's "Supercut" outside of Love's house, saying that he got it from rom-coms "of [her] generation."
"Holding the boombox outside the house is so iconic, so I’m glad I got to experience that. It’s actually funny, because I’m a year older than Victoria [Pedretti], and much older than my character, so those moments where she’s referring to me as a teenager were always really funny because I’m older than she is. But yeah, we had a lot of fun with those scenes, but it’s also very heartbreaking. We figured out a way to make it fun and charming."
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