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For someone who moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career less than a decade ago, Katy O’Brian has worked her way into some gigantic projects with impressive speed. Just a few years after the 36-year-old Indiana native quit her job in law enforcement to follow her dream, she appeared as Elia Kane in The Mandalorian, and in 2023 she took on the role of Jentorra in Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. But her real breakout came last year in the romantic thriller Love Lies Bleeding, where she starred opposite Kristen Stewart as Jackie Cleaver, a bodybuilder whose steroid-fueled rage sets off a violent chain of events.
It was the perfect role for O’Brian, who used to be a bodybuilder herself (though, it must be said, never took steroids) and has trained in martial arts since she was a child. It was also her first lead role, which was so important to her that, after she found out on the first day of shooting that she needed surgery or her intestines might rupture due to a buildup of scar tissue caused by Crohn’s disease, an autoimmune disorder that affects the gastrointestinal tract, she decided to wait until she was done filming the movie to undergo the procedure. Working out three hours a day and adhering to a strict diet to achieve Jackie’s burly physique would be daunting to most people when they’re 100% healthy, let alone when their guts are basically swollen shut. But most people are not Katy O’Brian.
Since Love Lies Bleeding, her already flourishing career got a few more shots in the arm. Last year, she appeared as a member of Glen Powell’s tornado-chasing crew in Twisters, and starting this weekend, you can see her in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. A Stephen King adaptation, a horror-comedy directed by the daughter of George Romero and a Christy Martin biopic with Sydney Sweeney are also on the horizon.
We caught up with O’Brian ahead of the Mission: Impossible release to talk about her journey from police officer to actor, what she learned on set with Tom Cruise and why the up-and-coming action hero is excited to “tell fresh stories.”
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
InsideHook: You just had the Mission: Impossible premiere a couple days ago. What was it like to be able to finally celebrate the movie coming out?
Katy O’Brian: It was so cool. I was on it around this time last year. So for me it was like, wow, this is a really rapid turnaround, but it was so awesome to see everyone that had been working on it for like five years and their excitement for it. And with the audience, it really felt like a legit movie premiere. The excitement was there. It played really well, I think. It was so fun to watch. It hit me then how big of a deal it was. I think part of the reason that it took a while for it to hit me was, you know, the second you walk on that set everybody just treats you like family and like you’ve been there for the last five years, so I just felt like I was hanging out with my friends. Then I got to the premiere and was like, oh no, wait.
How did you find your way into this final installment? What was the audition process like?
It’s so funny, I was talking to McQ [director Christopher McQuarrie] and he’s like, “I don’t audition. What are you talking about?” Because I told him I had auditioned twice. So I don’t know if it was like casting was on one page and he was just was on another, but I had auditioned like in 2023 and didn’t hear anything back. Casting said, “Hey, we really love you for it, but we don’t know.” And then there was a strike. A whole year later, almost a year to the day, I think they were like, we still haven’t filled this role, and they had me audition. I said, “I’m not going to do anything different than my last audition. They can just look at that.” [laughs] But I did it anyway.
Then next thing I know I’m on a phone call with McQ, and it was supposed to be 30 minutes I think, and we talked for like an hour and a half or something and just really vibed. I’m obsessed with that man. Then I was doing Love Lives Bleeding press and had a whole day of just constant go, go, go, and my team called and they were like, “Hey, you got five minutes? McQ wants to talk to you.” And went in and gave him a chat, and he was like, “Just wanted to welcome you on the project! All right, have a good day. I hear you’re busy.” But I was like, “That’s it?” [laughs] So I was like, “I guess I’m in Mission: Impossible” while I was trying to do press for the day. It was really random and wild.
What was it like being on that set? It’s such a stacked cast. Tom Cruise, obviously, but everybody in it.
What’s so cool is like the second you walk on, Tom comes up and is like, “Hey, I’m Tom,” and he’s excited to meet you, and then you have a quick conversation even though you know he’s got to go to work. Simon Pegg went out of his way to say hi. I got to watch Ving Rhames do his thing. It was surreal because you step on and they just right away treat you like you belong there. What I really loved, and what was so inspiring for me, was that they encourage you to ask questions, encourage you to walk around and to learn as much as you can about filming in general.
Right off the bat, McQ was showing us lenses and how they’re shooting certain scenes, so that we understand how the camera’s working. Tom was adamant that we understood how much work went into each set piece and each prop, which is so important because I think a lot of times people don’t know how hard the crew works behind the scenes to develop even a piece of glass to go in a helmet. They put that much attention to detail and that much time, energy and effort into everything. We got to work on this massive gimbal that they were using to make all these underwater practical things happen. It took time to do that, and they didn’t have to, and it really adds to the magic of the movie. So it was a dream.
Between Mission: Impossible, The Mandalorian and Ant-Man, you’ve been part of a lot of franchises that have these big, dedicated fan bases. What has that experience been like?
It’s so fascinating to me because something like Star Wars and Mission: Impossible, and even Marvel, those go back so far. It’s multi-generational, and I love that because you’ll see people in their 60s, 70s excited, and you’ll see people seven, six excited. I’ve always enjoyed that because it’s a shared experience, and I think that’s what can draw a large audience and can give people a way to communicate.
I love going to hang out with one of my older brothers because he doesn’t get any of this world. He’s like, “Oh, what are you on?” And then you tell him and he’s like, “Oh, cool. But can you fix a car?” So I almost feel like that when I walk in. I’m like, “Oh, this is cool, you guys are doing some cool stuff,” but I don’t really fully grasp the magic of it until I see how big of a fan base it has and how excited they are for it. Then I feel a sense of responsibility to make them happy, and it’s just overwhelming.
Tell me a little bit about how you got into acting in the first place. I know you previously were a police officer and then a bodybuilder, so how did you eventually pivot?
I actually started when I was really young in Indiana. It was difficult because they didn’t really know what to do with me — and my brother as well, we were both actors. They said right off the bat that we needed to leave the Indiana market. They were like, “You’re just not marketable here.” So I read that as there’s not a place for me in this business at a very young age.
I did it as a hobby continuously throughout middle school, high school, whenever I had an opportunity, but I did feel like I needed to do a realistic job or whatever, so I went to school for psychology, thought that was going to be my route and wound up becoming a police officer randomly through that. I had a moment one day where I was like, this isn’t what I want to do. It doesn’t bring me joy, and while I’m at least somewhat young I should probably figure out what does. And it was always acting. There’s something about it that gave me the freedom to express myself in a way that I didn’t. I felt so constrained in other ways.
So I was like, I’m going to write down the things that will make me happy. I wanted to get in really good shape just for my own confidence. And then I wanted to act, so I found an acting class and then worked really hard and just kept going and going and going so I felt confident enough to leave for Los Angeles.
Let’s talk a little bit about the response to Love Lies Bleeding, because it was your first lead role in a film and the reception to it was great. What does that mean to you that it was so embraced?
I was blown away because when I read the script I was like, who is this movie for, except for me? Like this is a dream role for me and such a fun and quirky and completely off-the-wall script. I was shocked it got funded. I didn’t think you could make art like this, and then to see how passionate Kristen [Stewart] was for it, I was like, okay, this movie is for us, then. But then to see how excited Ed Harris was for it — all right, maybe there’s more to this than I think. [laughs] Just the amount of people, all different types of social groups that have watched it and have enjoyed it, I’m like, okay cool, so I’ve been limiting. [Director] Rose Glass is a revolutionary, and she knows what’s cool and how to break from the status quo in a way that people are going to relate to.
You’ve spoken before about having Crohn’s disease, and I actually have Crohn’s too, so I wanted to ask you about it. You had to put off a surgery while you were filming Love Lies Bleeding?
Yeah, that was so annoying. For whatever reason, I always do an MRI before I do a big project like that just to make sure that I’m not dying again. I was told it was going to take three days to get the results, and then like three weeks later, the day that I started filming, my doctor called and said that I needed surgery or my intestines might explode. I was like, “What?!” I also tested positive for COVID that day — it was a false positive, but it was just the worst way to start the movie. I got a PCR test, that was fine. But the surgery was still looming over my head for a while. I had a scheduled meeting with a surgeon, and she looked at my MRI, and she was a total 180 from my doctor. She was like, “You’re not going to die.” [laughs] She was casually eating lunch, like, “When do you want the surgery?” I said, “Well, can I wait?” And she’s like, “Sure. If you’re not in any pain, I don’t care, whatever.”
She was like, “You should be in pain. It looks like you’d be in pain. I have someone else that has the same MRI that’s in the hospital right now, but if you can wait, let’s do it.” I was so lucky I was able to put it off. Not only for Love Lies Bleeding for the entirety of the shoot, but I also had reshoots for Ant-Man right after, so I was able to do both and then do the surgery right away so that I could get it out of the way. They said I would be back on my feet in like a day, like it’s nothing. No. I looked like I’d been stabbed. It was awful.
I bet! Even leading up to the surgery, you said your surgeon was surprised that you weren’t in pain — I’m also surprised. [laughs] That’s crazy.
I kind of credit the movie to that because I was on such a healthy diet. And I was working out, which is really helpful for movement and stuff. I was so healthy. That’s why I think I was able to postpone it longer than maybe otherwise would have been possible.
You’re going to be in The Running Man reuniting with your Twisters co-star Glen Powell. What can you tell me about that?
It is going to be closer to the book than the Arnold [Schwarzenegger] version. I like Glen better than I like the character he plays in the book. Glen is just so charming and lovable. It’s the first time I read a script and was like, I know who’s directing this project. It was so very Edgar [Wright], even in the script. It’s got its moments of humor, he had the soundtrack ready — he knew exactly where he wanted to put the music before we even started filming. It was such a cool experience to see his style of filmmaking, and it’s definitely gonna have his stamp on it. It’s gonna have Glen’s personality carrying a lot of the weight.
There’s also the upcoming Christy Martin biopic with Sydney Sweeney. What was it like training for that from a boxing perspective versus training for bodybuilding? Were there differences?
They gave me very little time to really train per se for this. I do Muay Thai, which involves kicking and everything. It’s a totally different stance, different posture, different way of striking. So a lot of what we were trying to do in a short period of time was tweak my position.
Sydney has a similar background because she did MMA, so it would be a little more front-facing because you can throw kicks, you can take people down, things like that. So it’s really just tweaking those positions, and then you know how to throw a punch. It felt very much in my wheelhouse training-wise. With bodybuilding, it’s very strict diets. I didn’t feel like on my end I had to push myself the same way, so it was just kind of like normal training for me.
But Sydney, man. She had so many fights to learn. She did a physical transformation, which doesn’t feel good — eating to put on weight does not feel good. It kind of hurts and sucks, but she put her heart and soul into that project. And to be fair, Christy Martin was there pretty often, so to add that extra weight of playing a real person, it’s so intimidating. I also had to portray a real person [Lisa Holewyne], and I got to meet her, and I was apologetic right off the bat, like, “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to talk like you, I don’t know how to move like you.” She was like, “I don’t care.” So that took the weight off for me.
You’ve got another project on the horizon, Queens of the Dead. Is there anything you can say about that, or is that still under wraps?
I just saw it last night for the first time, and I’m so excited. Like a typical George Romero movie, I think, we had very little time to shoot it. And Tina [Romero, director and daughter of George] put her spin on it, and I think she should be really proud. I was blown away. It’s obviously very queer, and it’s like any Romero movie — it has a purpose and a point. There are moments that are very touching. Also grounded in humor, but it says something as well.
Tell me a bit about your big-picture career goals. If you’re looking five years ahead, what do you hope for yourself?
It’s funny because they are constantly changing and evolving as I go through things. I used to say, “I want to do a remake of Xena,” and now I’m kind of like, no, that just belongs where it is. I’m kind of over remakes in a way. I want to tell fresh stories, and I would love to do an action movie while I’m still able to do them. I’d love to do something centered around martial arts, like the old kung fu movies, Jackie Chan kind of vibe. That’s what I grew up watching and what I absolutely adore, so I’d love something like that with a little twist on it.
I’d love to do a rom-com. I’d love to do more drama. But I’m being a lot more selective in terms of, why are we telling a story now and does it need to be later? What do I bring to this story? And as many scripts as there are out there, I don’t know, it’s few and far between that really resonate anymore. I’m just trying to find the things that I want to tell, and I’m trying to team up with my wife [Kylie Chi], who is an amazing writer. We’re trying to also come up with our own stuff.
You mentioned your martial arts background earlier, and I’m curious, do you think that impacts your acting style at all, or are they totally separate crafts?
I don’t think they’re separate crafts. I’ve always had a tension and a rigidity to me that definitely comes from my old traditional style, and one thing that I love about something like jiu-jitsu is it’s very fluid. It’s just little things where I’m like, that’s because I’ve spent years of martial arts that I walk like that, that I stand like that, that I move like that.
A lot of it is movement-based, but in martial arts, you’re constantly reading an opponent, and in acting you’re reading your scene partner. There’s a lot of give and take, and it takes a lot of discipline to train and to push yourself. I think that translates well into going through these motions for the films.
This Mission: Impossible release feels like the start to a pretty big year. What’s next for you?
I don’t know. It’s such a weird time in the business. It’s crazy to have this many projects coming out in a year and have had crickets on the back end. I have no idea. I’ve had some talks about some projects, but nothing is written. It’s a really strange feeling to go from work, work, work to like, will I ever work again? But I think that’s the life of an actor, unfortunately. But yeah, I’m available. [laughs] I’m hoping that I can work with people that I adore and admire and also continue to meet new people along the way. I will also be in this rom-com Maintenance Required. It’s an Amazon rom-com, and I will say I’m the “com” part, I’m not the “rom.” [laughs] I think it’s such a cute project in the middle of all the more intense ones. I haven’t seen it yet, but it should be fun, like a complete diversion from any character that I’ve gotten to play so far. It’s been nice to flex some comedy chops.
Are you trying to make a conscious choice of dipping your toes into other genres and avoiding getting typecast?
Yeah, it’s such a hard balance, not only for the industry but for audiences. I watched this Tom Cruise documentary, and it was talking about how basically people want to see him in action now. That’s the most success, so now he’s done so many action things, but I think he also craves the dramas because he’s such an amazing actor, so it’s trying to find the balance of like, I don’t want to be pigeonholed, I don’t want to stay in one genre, one role that’s creatively a dead zone for me, but also to know that it is a business, so you have to balance, like give maybe three of these roles that people know you for and then do one that’s just for you.
So I’m trying to figure that balance out and play around with it, but I definitely don’t want to just be seen as this one actor that can do this one thing. I don’t think anyone wants that.
Location: Edge Studios
Photography: Eric Michael Roy
1st Assistant: William Hedden
DP: Philipe Alexander
Photo Assistant: Thomas Henriksen
Photo Assistant: Geoffrey Nicholson
Styling: Amanda Kim & Luca Kingston
Style Assistant: Tori Petrovsky
Grooming: Courtney Housner at Dew Beauty Agency
Creative Director: Kevin Breen
Art Director: Olivia Sheehy
Digital Cover
