Keiynan Lonsdale

**Keiynan Lonsdale** (born December 19, 1991) is an Australian actor, dancer, and singer-songwriter. He is known for his television roles as dance student Oliver Lloyd on the ABC series *Dance Academy* (2012–2013) and Wally West / Kid Flash on The CW series *The Flash* and *Legends of Tomorrow* (beginning 2015); and for film roles in *The Divergent Series: Insurgent* (2015), *The Finest Hours* (2016), and *Love, Simon* (2018). He has also worked as an MTV VJ, and released original music recordings.

## Early life

Lonsdale was born in Sydney, Australia, to a Nigerian father of the Edo people, and an Australian mother who is of Irish and Danish descent. He is the youngest of six children on his mother's side, with three brothers and two sisters, and one of seven from his father's side; in total he has 11 siblings.

## Career

Lonsdale got his first acting job in 2007, with a bit dancing part in the film *Razzle Dazzle: A Journey into Dance*. The following year, he appeared in an episode of the Australian television medical drama *All Saints*.

Lonsdale became a recurring member of the cast of the Australian teen drama series *Dance Academy* in the 2012 second season; his character Oliver Lloyd became a regular in the third and final season.

He was a VJ on MTV for two and a half years. He released a single on iTunes titled "One and Only" in 2014. He then played a supporting role as Uriah Pedrad in *The Divergent Series: Insurgent* (2015), the second film in the series. He briefly reprised the role in *The Divergent Series: Allegiant* (2016). In 2016, his single "Higher" was included on Connor Franta's curated album *Common Culture, volume 5*. He next appeared in the historical drama *The Finest Hours* (2016) as Eldon Hanon, the youngest sailor involved in a rescue at sea.

In 2015, he auditioned for the role of Jefferson "Jax" Jackson—a recurring character introduced in the second season of the CW's *The Flash*—but this role was given to Franz Drameh. Instead, Lonsdale was cast as Wally West, the previously unknown son of the hero's foster father, who became a regular supporting character as Kid Flash. In 2017, his character left *The Flash* and debuted on *Legends of Tomorrow*. That year, Lonsdale also appeared in an episode of *Supergirl.*

In 2018, Lonsdale starred as Bram in the film *Love, Simon*, based on the novel *Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda*, by Becky Albertalli, about a teenage boy who struggles to come out; Lonsdale has said that the role helped him come to terms with his own sexuality. Upon release, the film received positive reviews from critics, and was dubbed historically significant, as it is the first film ever released by a major studio to focus on a gay teenage romance.

Lonsdale has also released musical recordings, including "Higher" in 2015 and "Good Life" in 2017 and “Kiss The Boy” in 2018.

## Personal life

Lonsdale came out publicly through means of an Instagram post in 2017, later clarifying in a 2018 interview with *The Hollywood Reporter*, that he prefers not to label his sexuality, and identifies primarily as queer.

## External Links

* Keiynan Lonsdale in Wikipedia
* Keiynan Lonsdale in Internet Movie Database
* Follow Keiynan Lonsdale (@KeiynanLonsdale) in Twitter
* Follow Keiynan Lonsdale (@keiynanlonsdale) on Instagram