Here's a sneak peek into the myriad topics Brandon Sklenar shuns from discussing: the intricate narrative arcs of his latest film, The Housemaid, his favorite scenes, the most challenging ones, his character's transformation, and the ultimate twist—especially the ultimate twist. Sklenar stars alongside Amanda Seyfried in Paul Feig's psychological thriller, a tale of a seemingly perfect married couple whose lurid secrets surface when their new maid (played by the enigmatic Sydney Sweeney) moves in. Inspired by Freida McFadden's 2022 best-selling novel, the filmmakers are keen to keep the plot's many twists under wraps for as long as possible.
What Sklenar can discuss is the journey that led him to this leading-man moment. Until a couple of years ago, he was a seasoned journeyman actor—content with that status. "I grew up doing construction and started swinging a hammer at 10, so I've always just worked," says the 32-year-old, who was raised in Dover, New Jersey, by a carpenter father and a hairdresser mother. After high school, he relocated to Los Angeles and took whatever roles came his way—an episode of New Girl, a Robert Mapplethorpe biopic, Adam McKay's Vice. Then came a call from Taylor Sheridan.
"1923 felt like going through the birth canal," he says of the Yellowstone prequel, in which he played Kevin Costner's John Dutton's great-great-grandfather. "It was my first time doing a project of that scale and at the top of a call sheet." He impressed Sheridan enough to be brought back—he's fronting Sheridan's next movie, a Special Forces drama for Warner Bros.—and underwent a major personal shift. His old construction-worker mindset didn't translate. "My director on 1923 was like, 'Dude, you don't have to work so fucking hard,'" he says with a laugh. "I spent a lot of time arguing with him, and then one day it just clicked."
He carried that looseness into his next project—and found true acting joy for the first time. That job was It Ends With Us, which turned out to be anything but joyful thanks to the ongoing legal battle between his co-star Blake Lively and director Justin Baldoni. "There was a big learning curve for me because even though I had a small part in the film, my visibility shot through the roof," he says. At one point during the press tour, the actor posted an Instagram calling for fans to be kinder. "I wasn't damning anybody, but I was just like, 'Can we focus on the ethos of this whole fucking movie and not be so hateful to anybody?'" He thought it was a nice thing to say, but apparently, a lot of people didn't feel that way.
The backlash was swift: "You're a piece of shit," "I hope you die," "I hope your career ends," and so on. His agent—who had another very famous client go through something similar—begged him to stay offline. "But imagine you're walking down a hallway and there's a door to a room full of a hundred thousand people and they're all saying something about you," Sklenar says. "You tell me you're not going to put your ear to the door?"
But like all things, that blowback passed. And now he's having a banner year. This spring, he starred alongside Meghann Fahy in the surprise hit Drop, a Blumhouse horror romp that takes place almost entirely in a restaurant on the top floor of a skyscraper. "I'm really happy people loved it, and Meghann became a dear friend and we made it fun," he says with a laugh. "But man, that was monotonous to shoot. Sitting in that restaurant chair on a soundstage for seven weeks. One day, it was, 'Do you want some calamari?' And then the next day, 'How's your calamari?' It was a fucking slog if I'm being honest."
And this Christmas comes The Housemaid, and with it a chance to share screen time with another co-star who knows more than a thing or two about unwanted attention. "Sydney's been through her fair share," he says, "and we've spoken a bit about it. You really just have to block it out and not let it in." But, of course, that's not something he can talk about.
