How did Katy O’Brian get her start?
When Katy O’Brian began studying martial arts as a child, it wasn’t with an action-film career in mind. “I had this little bullying situation when I was in kindergarten, where this older group of guys would pick on me,” she recalls. “My dad was like, ‘Screw it, we’re signing you up for karate.’” Martial arts became a way for her to bond with her dad, and she continued her training all the way through college, at Indiana University—but did she ever have to use her skills on the bullies? “I learned that if you just kick them in the middle of their legs, it hurt,” she says. “They decided to stop picking on me after that.”
Which projects has she worked on?
After college, O’Brian worked in law enforcement in Indiana but eventually decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue acting. “I wasn’t really happy with what I was doing,” she remembers, “and I was like, ‘OK, I’m gonna sit and write down what I really want out of life.’” She landed bit parts in TV series such as The Walking Dead and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., then catapulted to the big leagues with major roles in The Mandalorian and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania—two famously secretive productions. “Law enforcement helped with that, because you’ve got a lot of people’s secrets,” she says. “My wife likes to pry, but I’m probably an expert at keeping secrets.”
What is her role in Love Lies Bleeding?
This month, O’Brian stars alongside Kristen Stewart in Love Lies Bleeding, a thriller set in the 1980s. She plays Jackie, a bodybuilder who becomes entangled in the misdeeds of her girlfriend’s criminal family. “When I first got the breakdown of the character, it definitely resonated with me,” she says, “but I was really nervous, because this was something that was gonna challenge me in every way.” O’Brian drew on her own experience as a competitive bodybuilder for the role: “This was actually easier than when I competed, because [back then] I had to weigh my own food and make my meals—and there’s a huge difference, I think, between the expectations of modern and 1980s bodybuilding.”
What’s next?
Later this year, O’Brian will star in Twisters, a highly anticipated update to the wildly successful 1996 tornado disaster film. The new production also features Glen Powell, Kiernan Shipka, Daisy Edgar-Jones, and Maura Tierney. “It’s an amazing ensemble cast,” O’Brian says. “I think it’s gonna be a really fun summer blockbuster movie.” When asked if there are any other genres she has her sights set on, she has a very specific reply: “I keep reading that Dave Bautista wants to do a rom-com, and no one will cast him in one, so I think it’d be really fun to do an action rom-com with him.”
