Ronen Rubinstein

**Ronen Rubinstein** is an actor on *9-1-1: Lone Star*, who portrays the role of TK Strand.

## History

### Early Life

Rubinstein was born in Rehovot, Israel, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants from the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, part of then Soviet Union (now Kazakhstan). His older sister also immigrated from the USSR to Israel. His father, a dentist, served in the Israeli army and did not want the same for his children. When Rubinstein was five years old, he moved with his parents and older sister to the United States, where he grew up in the Staten Island borough of New York City. In an interview, Rubinstein said he felt like an outsider growing up as an immigrant, taking English as a Second Language classes and having difficulty adapting to the American culture.

He was introduced to acting in his sophomore year of high school when his guidance counselor suggested he try theater as a form of therapy and escape from the opioid epidemic in his neighborhood. He briefly worked as a dental assistant in his father's dental office, but chose not to follow in his footsteps and become a doctor. After attending New Dorp High School, he decided to pursue an acting career and graduated from the New York Film Academy.

### Career

In his senior year of high school, he landed a leading role in *It Felt Like Love*, Eliza Hittman's coming-of-age film shot in intimate close-ups with minimal dialogue, which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. He portrayed Sammy, a tough, misogynistic college boy from a working-class Brooklyn neighborhood, described by *The New York Times* as a "weed-smoking, pornography-watching bad boy whose contempt for women is as potent as his pheromones". The film received a nomination for best cinematography at the Film Independent Spirit Awards as well as nominations at the Gotham Awards.

In 2015, he guest starred in episode 10, season 3 of Netflix's most-watched original series *Orange Is the New Black*, portraying the respectful and caring Nathan, Tiffany "Pennsatucky" Doggett's love interest, which brought him to mainstream attention.

In 2016, he was a series regular as Alex Powell in Freeform's *Dead of Summer*.

In 2018, he appeared in the role of Mike in the comedy drama *Dude* alongside Lucy Hale and Awkwafina. The film was Olivia Milch's directional debut. Rubinstein, having worked with several first-time female directors (which he called "an absolute honor"), advocated for gender equality in filmmaking and praised Milch as "a future star director". The film also had a female cinematographer which he called "so rare", stating that "there is not enough women in the industry".

In 2020, he starred as an openly gay firefighter and recovering opioid addict Tyler Kennedy "TK" Strand in Ryan Murphy's Fox series *9-1-1: Lone Star*, alongside Rob Lowe, who plays Captain Owen Strand, TK's father, and Liv Tyler. The series has become Fox's most watched new show of 2020 among 18-49 adults and has received acclaim for its interracial gay storyline and diverse characters, such as a hijab-wearing Muslim female firefighter and a black transgender male firefighter (portrayed by the transgender actor Brian Michael Smith). In a 2020 interview, Rubinstein said: "I think people for the first time, at least on network television, are seeing themselves on screen, and they feel represented, and they feel represented in a really positive, lovely, good way." His role of a gay firefighter inspired real life gay first responders to come out to him through social media. He has praised Ryan Murphy and the writers for normalizing a same-sex relationship on primetime television without including a coming out story: "A lot of times you'd see a gay couple on television there's something really dramatic and usually sad involved with it. And this is just like, 'Yeah, this is just normal. This is just how it is'." The series has earned the 32nd GLAAD Media Awards nomination for Outstanding Drama Series.

Rubinstein stars as the antagonist Alexei in *Follow Me*, a thriller about the dangers of influencer culture on social media, which had an international theatrical release on July 16, and was released in the United States and on demand on September 18 under the title *No Escape*. He speaks Russian in the film.

Rubinstein is the lead in Bret Easton Ellis's *Smiley Face Killers*, a thriller film based on true events that support the smiley face murder theory about an organized gang of serial killers committing murders of young, handsome athletic men throughout the United States. It was released in late 2020.

In 2021, Rubinstein joined the cast of Ryan Murphy's *American Horror Stories* for the fifth episode, starring alongside Billie Lourd

## External Links

* Ronen Rubinstein on IMDB
* Ronen Rubinstein (@ronenrubinstein) on Instagram
* Ronen Rubinstein (@RonenRubinstein) on Twitter