With one film currently in theaters, Life After Beth, and three more in production, Dane Dehaan is an actor specializing in dark depondent rolls. His troubled characters appear in several genres, ranging from sci-fi to drama to romance.
At the age of five, Dehaan was already seeking opportunities to act. His parents offered to find him an agent so he could begin a career in acting, but he decided he wanted to study the craft first. In his teens, he made several short films. He was vice president of his theater class in high school and starred in every production. After graduating from the University of North Carolina School of Arts in 2008, Dehaan began the journey to his stardom.
He received an Obie Award in 2010 for his performance in the Off-Broadway production The Aliens which was awarded “Play of the Year” in The New York Times. That same year, he made his film debut in the war-drama Amigo alongside Chris Cooper (American Beauty) who he would later reunite with in The Amazing Spiderman 2. He then landed his most known, recurring role as the character Jesse on the Emmy-award winning television series In Treatment. The show revolves around a psychotherapist seeking guidance from his old therapist who he has not seen for ten years. Dehaan’s performance as Jesse was proclaimed a “revolutionary breakthrough” by Variety and “brilliant” by the Chicago Sun-Times.
In 2012, Dehaan surprised audiences with his major role as Andrew, a bullied teenager who gets superpowers after a rare discovery, in the shaky-cam sci-fi thriller Chronicle. Dehaan quickly found his niche playing dark and tormented characters. These roles include playing the troubled son of an infamous robber in The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), the disturbed poet Lucien Carr in Kill Your Darlings (2013), and his twisted portrayal as the Green Goblin in The Amazing Spiderman 2 (2014).
On imdb.com, Dehaan is quoted saying, “Comic-book movies are where my childhood fantasies meet my adulthood acting fantasies. I really, truly started acting by playing superheroes in my backyard.”
Currently, his starring role in Life After Beth follows this pattern of dark characters. In the romantic horror flick, Dehaan’s character Zach finds his recently deceased girlfriend, played by Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation), somehow resurrected after falling victim to a fatal snake bite. He soon notices that she is different than the way she was before, with a craving for a little something more than just Zach’s love. Life After Beth was released on Aug. 15 and is still playing in select theaters.
Sammi Brennan can be reached at Samantha.brennan@spartans.ut.edu.