‘You’ Viewers Will Spot Familiar Face in ‘Halloween Kills’

October has been a big month for horror and thriller fans. Aside from the overall celebration of creepy and sinister movies and TV shows, two new releases have been dominating the pop culture conversation. Netflix dropped Season 3 of You, the serial killer dramedy starring Penn Badgely and Victoria Pedretti, and Universal Pictures unleashed Halloween Kills, the latest chapter in the saga of mass murderer Michael Myers. Fans who watched both might have picked up on a familiar face that appears in both: Dylan Arnold.

Arnold is a 27-year-old actor whose career is definitely on the rise after this back-to-back string of big roles. In You, he plays Theo Engler, a young man who makes his way into the lives of Love (Pedretti) and Joe (Badgely). We won’t spoil more than that, but know that he pops up quite a lot in this next chapter of the stalker series.

Fans of the Halloween franchise are already familiar with Arnold, being as he appeared in 2018’s Halloween before reprising his role as Cameron Elam in Halloween Kills. Cameron is the boyfriend of Allyson Nelson (Andi Matichak), who, in turn, is the granddaughter of Halloween heroine Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). In Halloween Kills, he pops back up as the hunt for Michael Myers continues, and this time his dad, Lonnie Elam (Robert Longstreet) joins the cast of characters. 

Arnold’s star has been rising in recent years, with roles in several high-profile TV shows and movies. On TV, he appeared in episodes of S.W.A.T. and Nashville, as well as horror dramas The Purge and Into the Dark. On the big screen, he appeared in Mudbound and Laggies, in addition to the 2019 romantic film After and its 2020 sequel After We Collided. However, You fans almost met him even sooner. In a recent interview with Teen Vogue, he revealed that he auditioned for two major You roles: Joe and Forty Quinn (James Scully).

“I auditioned for Joe for season 1, and then I auditioned for Forty for season 2, and now, third time’s the charm, I got Theo in season 3,” Arnold said. “So my relationship with the show goes way back, and I actually went to college with Elizabeth Lail, who played Guinevere Beck in the first season. So I’d seen the first few episodes, but it wasn’t until I got the audition for the third season that I went back and was like okay, let me watch the second season and get the tone of the show. I wound up bingeing the entire second season in two and a half days, which I’ve never done with another show I’ve auditioned for. I feel very lucky to be part of the third season, I actually became a huge fan of the show when I was auditioning, so it worked out.”