Although fans of multiple franchises are likely familiar with Katy O’Brian‘s work, she’s ready to take the lead in a major blockbuster.
The actress, who appears this month in Christy and The Running Man, spoke to Deadline about her “whirlwind” onscreen year, admitting that she’s since had a “very unusual” time amid numerous ups and downs in the industry and is considering “taking things into my own hands” to play the roles she wants.
“I think most of the movies, I have very little screen time, actually,” she said. “So, it was like encouraging slash discouraging kind of at the same time, because it’s like, ‘OK, well, is this gonna be my career trajectory? Will I ever get opportunities outside a queer project that’s a low budget, to be a lead character?’ I don’t know that that’s the case. I think there’s still a lot of obstacles globally we have to get over to do that. So, it’s just one of those eye openers.”
In director Edgar Wright‘s The Running Man, based on Stephen King‘s 1982 novel, O’Brian plays Ben’s (Glen Powell) fellow contestant Laughlin, an expanded and gender-flipped version of the original character, who joins the titular deadly reality show for a chance at winning a fortune.
“I really admired his sense of humor and all of that, even if it’s the apocalypse or whatever,” O’Brian praised Wright. “And his cool cuts, his editing choices, the way he slides sound design, music into everything, I think he just makes for a really unique cinematic experience.”
Katy O’Brian, Glen Powell and Martin Herlihy in ‘The Running Man’
Now playing in theaters, Christy has O’Brian starring as boxer Lisa Holewyne, the first real person she’s played in her career. “It was really intimidating, and the fact that she’s still alive too, and well and very strong, a Hall of Fame boxer—you want to do it right for so many reasons,” she explained.
With seven years as a police officer and 30 years of martial arts experience, it’s no surprise seeing her dominate some of the most physically demanding of roles, such as her breakout last year in A24’s Love Lies Bleeding, which caught Wright’s attention and prompted him to offer her a role in Running Man.
This year alone, O’Brian appeared in The Running Man, Christy, Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, Queens of the Dead and Maintenance Required. It’s quite the resume for an actress whose credits also include Twisters, The Mandalorian, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and The Walking Dead.
Read on about Katy O’Brian’s whirlwind onscreen year, her hopes for the future of the industry and working with Edgar Wright and Glen Powell on The Running Man, premiering Nov. 14 in theaters.
DEADLINE: Tell me about working with Edgar Wright and recreating this Stephen King story, which is also a classic 80s action movie.
KATY O’BRIAN: I guess he just saw Love Lies Bleeding and wanted me in this movie, which I was really excited about cause I’ve always loved Edgar’s work. I loved like his kind of lower budget, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. I really admired his sense of humor and all of that, even if it’s the apocalypse or whatever, and his cool cuts, his editing choices, the way he slides sound design, music into everything, I think he just makes for a really unique cinematic experience. So I was really excited to tackle that in Running Man. And when he offered me the part, I was like, “Yeah, whatever it is, let’s do it.” He’s like, “Have you ever heard of The Running Man?” I’m like, “Nope, never, no idea.” And he goes, “What we’re going to do is closer to the book.” It’s not like the 80s movie at all, pretty much. So, I waited until after I finished filming to watch the movie because I didn’t want it to kind of skew—I know that they were going to pay homage in their own way, but I didn’t want to really skew my performance. And then I read the book, and I kind of thought the character that Glen plays is kind of dick. By modern standards, kind of disgusting. And when I read Edgar’s version of the script, I was like, “OK, he’s humanized a little bit, made him a little less—” He’s still angry but less hostile towards women. I think it was one of the main things that was shocking to me. And then, it was the first time reading a script where I could see that, this is Edgar Wright, this is his project. He has his cuts in the script. He has his music in the script, his humor is in the script. It was all there and it was the first time that I did table reads in a really long time, with the whole cast. And we got to do rehearsals, and it kind of felt like an old school way of doing things, in this modern world’s rush to get everything done. And I think he really made it an effort to give everyone as much time as they needed to ask questions. He tried to make himself available, and it was a really fun experience, especially the scenes that I got to do with Martin Herlihy, and he’s improving and making us all laugh and break. We ended up having a lot of fun together.
DEADLINE: What was it like playing Laughlin, this gender-flipped version of the OG character? And why does she join the contest?
O’BRIAN: Laughlin in the movie is totally different. The book Laughlin character gets like one sentence, I think. It’s just to say, “Hey, there are other runners out there, and oops, they died.” So, Edgar wanted one of the runners to be a woman this time, and I don’t know how he got the inspo to make her—well, I do. He had three types of runners, right? So, he has the hopeless one, and it’s all about ratings and views and how they select reality TV stars, right? So, there’s the hopeless one, who basically just doesn’t even know how to play the game; the negative one, who knows they have no chance in the world and is just gonna live it up the way they can. And that’s the one that essentially Laughlin is. And I think this is a world where it’s feeling a little real, where times are tough, the elite few have all the power, and everyone else has to succumb to the corporate structure. So, if you’re rebellious at all, if you have any kind of criminal record, if you don’t fall in line, you struggle to survive. And one of the few ways that you can is to get on these network shows. And I think when you come from a place of, everything sucks and everything is bad, it’s kind of hard to not say, “Why not?” And especially if you have the chance of maybe not even winning a billion dollars, but every day, you get a sum of money that you would never see in your entire life, it’s like, why not go out on your own terms and go out with a bang and and have a party while doing it? So, I think that’s where Laughlin was. The thing I really struggled with was, how are you getting this girl to do all these like tests before The Running Man, because I was sitting there like, “There’s no way you’re gonna tell Laughlin to jog on this treadmill for 30 minutes.” So, we kind of had to tiptoe around that one.
Katy O’Brian, Glen Powell, Martin Herlihy in ‘The Running Man’
DEADLINE: Did you get to do any fun stunts on this one?
O’BRIAN: Not as many as I’m used to. I usually get to work a little more closely with the stunt team. For whatever reason on this, they just either didn’t trust me or didn’t feel they had the time to work with me or something. I don’t really know, but the coolest thing I think I got to do was a slide across the car hood, and other than that, I was kind of bummed because I would have loved to have had a little more of the action on my own. I slide down a banister. I did a lot of sliding, kind of boring.
DEADLINE: And this your second time working with Glen Powell after Twisters. Have you guys become behind-the-scenes besties yet?
O’BRIAN: We’re engaged and we’ll be married—no, kidding. He’s super, super busy, but he’ll still take the time to respond to a text. We’re not besties, I don’t think, but if he has a premiere or anything like that, and I get an invite, I’m gung ho to go support for sure. But I love working with him. I love the energy that he brings to set, and I think he’s very driven and very motivated to make the most out of a career, and he’s trying to do the Tom [Cruise] thing, we’re trying to get people back in the theaters. He has a stage right now where he can make movies that speak to large audiences, hopefully, and bring people in. And I think that’s what he’s hoping to do, and I really admire that because that keeps all of us working. Right now, Los Angeles is like a dead zone. It’s so bizarre, but people are just not getting jobs, and it just feels like the industry is losing its heart in a way. So, it’s good that people in his position are trying to find ways to keep that spark alive. And I love a good indie film, but it doesn’t necessarily propel that forward. So, he’s trying to do the best he can with these fun, entertaining blockbusters and stuff.
DEADLINE: And then in Christy, you’re playing a real person. Is that the first time you’ve done a nonfiction role like that?
Yeah, it was my first time. It was really intimidating because, and the fact that she’s still alive too, and well and very strong, a Hall of Fame boxer—you want to do it right for so many reasons. And then also, Christy’s story is so inspiring, so heart-wrenching, and so very personal. It was one of those things where you really want to make sure that she’s on board, she’s happy where the direction’s going, and she feels protected. I was very proud of the way that the production handled that, and that she was an active participant in the project the entire time. She was on set regularly, and even Lisa, the person that I was playing, she would stop by. We mostly just goofed around, but she was very gracious with her time, very forthcoming in terms of answering any questions that I had. I just greatly appreciate both their vulnerability and also just their genuine love and goofiness around each other.
DEADLINE: What does it mean for you being so booked and so busy, especially in these major franchises, and especially as a queer woman of color in this industry?
O’BRIAN: Well, last year, it felt like kind of a whirlwind. I was surprised, but also excited. But also, with the exception of Queens of the Dead, which I knew wasn’t going to get much circulation just from budget alone, I still wasn’t getting lead roles. I think most of the movies, I have very little screen time, actually. So, it was like encouraging slash discouraging kind of at the same time, because it’s like, “OK, well, is this gonna be my career trajectory? Will I ever get opportunities outside a queer project that’s a low budget, to be a lead character?” I don’t know that that’s the case. I think there’s still a lot of obstacles globally we have to get over to do that. So, it’s just one of those eye openers. And then this year, weirdly, after having such a busy year—literally since coming to Los Angeles, I’ve not gone a single year without working on a project—this is the first year I have not booked a single thing. I haven’t gotten hardly any auditions. The offers that I’ve gotten are very bizarre, not just not on brand with the projects or like the quality of projects that I’m used to working, so it’s been a very, very unusual year for me. That’s also kind of concerning, discouraging, but you just kind of hope that people will see this and maybe they’ll find something that they like for me to be in in the future. Or I have to try to start taking things into my own hands and making my own projects. It’s a strange time and a strange feeling, promoting all of these and not having anything coming up.
DEADLINE: You’ve already been in so many big franchises. Are there any that you’d still like to join one day or any characters that you’d like to take on?
O’BRIAN: I don’t know. I’m really interested in building something from the ground up. Franchises aren’t my thing, really. After one or two movies or something … I totally get that people fall in love with their franchise and want to watch just 100 versions of that. But I don’t know because I don’t watch it, so not really.
DEADLINE: I appreciate that. We need more original projects and less existing IP.
O’BRIAN: Yeah. I mean, we love that, but here’s the other thing too, is people are like, “we really want that,” and then when people do it, they don’t go watch it. So, there’s no incentive to continue to make that, and that’s where it’s like, the streaming and everything, and the lack of understanding of how people get paid and how the business works. Now that things aren’t in theaters and people aren’t buying physical media, that was how a bulk of the money was made back on these projects, and then advertisements when they were playing on TV and things like that. So, we’re in a place now where those usual streams of income are gone. People don’t understand that, and they think, “I’ll wait for it to come home to streaming” or whatever. And no one really makes enough money on the back end to justify making more movies. So, we’re just in this weird time of trying to readjust and figure out what’s going to get made, how it’s gonna get made, etc. But if people don’t go watch it in theaters, and you say you want original content, you have to go watch it. You have to go support it. It’s the only way. … It’s like, we just don’t know how to support people anymore.
