Being in the MCU Didn’t Change This Actor’s Life, But Star Wars Did

Summary

Katy O’Brian returns to Collider Ladies Night for the release of The Running Man.
During her latest Ladies Night conversation with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff, O’Brian addresses the reality of joining some of the biggest franchises of all time, like Marvel and Star Wars.
She also goes into detail on her experience making The Running Man with Edgar Wright and Glen Powell.

Most actors are lucky to be part of a single major film franchise over the course of their career. However, in just five years, Katy O’Brian scored roles in three of the biggest franchises of all time — Star Wars, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Mission: Impossible. Yet another jaw-dropping and very well earned acting feat? Just a few months after Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning hit theaters, O’Brian had not one, not two, not three, but four major releases debut — Queens of the Dead, Christy, Maintenance Required, and now Edgar Wright’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Running Man.

O’Brian plays Jenni Laughlin in the film, one of three people selected to participate in The Network’s most popular and most dangerous game show, The Running Man. The risk is high, but so is the reward. If Laughlin, Glen Powell’s Ben Richards, or Martin Herlihy’s Jansky manage to evade McCone (Lee Pace) and The Hunters for 30 days, they win a whopping billion New Dollar reward. The odds of that happening? Mighty slim given no one’s ever won The Running Man, but producer Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) ensures their pursuit of that jackpot has sky-high entertainment value every single step of the way, even if it means putting the contestants’ lives at greater risk or manipulating his audience.

With The Running Man now playing in theaters nationwide, O’Brian returns to Collider Ladies Night after first making an appearance on the “Pre-Party” edition of the show for the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and then being part of the first-ever live Ladies Night at San Diego Comic Con in celebration of Twisters. This time around, not only does O’Brian break down her experience playing “chaos personified” in The Running Man, but she also looks back on the last five years and reveals which projects opened new doors, and which ones didn’t boost her star in this industry as much as you might expect.

Katy O’Brian Was Told ‘Ant-Man’ Would Change Her Life But “It Didn’t. It Really Didn’t.”

Being in ‘Mandalorian,’ however, was a different story.

Katy O'Brian in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania — Katy O’Brian as Jentorrah Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

It’s easy to assume scoring a role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe could function as an acting golden ticket. After all, it’s one of the biggest film franchises of all time. However, that’s not always the reality. Just the other week on Collider Ladies Night, Tessa Thompson explained that one might expect a blockbuster like Thor: Ragnarok to help an actor get a smaller project off the ground, but that’s not necessarily the case. In fact, being in a Thor movie almost cost her a role in an independent film she was itching to do.

While addressing the same topic with O’Brian, who made her MCU debut as Jentorra in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, she revealed that she was indeed told that role was about to change everything for her. In the end, however? It didn’t. Here’s how she put it:

“After Ant-Man, after the premiere, I had a producer come up and say, ‘Your life’s gonna change after this.’ And I’m always very much like, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’ And it didn’t. It really didn’t. I don’t feel like it did almost anything for my career, necessarily. It gave me more experience. I got to meet people that I adored. But in terms of getting that next job, I don’t know that it did.”

It Wasn’t Franchise Films That Changed the Game for O’Brian, It Was a Wonderfully Bonkers A24 Genre Mash-up

“That’s the thing that people want right now.”

Katy O'Brian in The Mandalorian — Katy O’Brian in The Mandalorian

While joining the MCU didn’t pave the way to other opportunities, her involvement in another beloved franchise most certainly did. She continued:

“With Mandalorian, what I will say is, because it is such a popular show, but also because you get to work with so many different directors — I got Ant-Man because I worked with Peyton Reed on Mandalorian, and I got Twisters because I worked with Lee Isaac Chung. I definitely credit that to pushing the needle a little bit. I think getting that opportunity to show that at least I’m tolerable to work with, I guess, and that people are bringing you on to their other projects, I got to go from television to blockbusters now. I think that helped.”

Yes, building connections with collaborators helps, but it’s rather shocking to hear that having both Star Wars and Marvel on one’s resume doesn’t send their star soaring in this industry. What gives?

“It is interesting. I wanted to have a mentor who was in the industry who wasn’t a rep of mine that could really give me the harsh truth, and I told her, ‘Hey, I’ve got this on my resume right now, and I can’t even get an agent.’ And she goes, ‘That’s because nobody cares.’ What is gonna push the needle changes constantly. So at the time, no one cared that I was in Star Wars or Ant-Man, Marvel, whatever. They just didn’t care anymore.”

So what do people in the industry care about? O’Brian continued, “This person said, ‘When Love Lies Bleeding comes out, that’s the thing that people want right now. So that will probably get you an agent.’ And it did, but it took over a year.”

‘Love Lies Bleeding’ Helped O’Brian Get ‘Christy’ & ‘The Running Man’

O’Brian is able to draw a connection between Love Lies Bleeding and two major releases she’s celebrating this year.

“Christy is one of them. It’s a biopic, and I’m playing a real person, and that was something that scared me, too, because Christy Martin’s story is, first of all, incredible. Like, unreal. I’m kind of shocked that I had never heard it before, especially considering that I love women’s sports. And you just so badly want to do it justice. When you’re playing a real person with a real heart and a real soul, you want to make sure that they feel seen, represented, all that. So, I was very fortunate, in terms of getting to play Lisa [Holewyne], that we had a conversation. We’re kind of very similar people. She’s hilarious, and we got on really well right away. So, that was something I don’t think would have come about without Love Lies Bleeding, to get to see that I had at least some range, maybe, and would be up for the challenge of something like that.”

Another filmmaker who felt inspired to not only cast O’Brian in his movie after seeing Love Lies Bleeding, but to craft a role specifically for her is Edgar Wright. O’Brian explained:

“Then, The Running Man, Edgar [Wright] kind of wrote this part a little bit with me in mind, and it’s so different than anything I’ve gotten to play. And I was honored because it’s kind of similar to, like, if I hadn’t grown up after college, and I’d just kind of partied a little bit too late in life, I might be this person, right? But it was fun that somebody saw that side of me, too, the silly, kind of more wild side, I guess.”

Between Christy, The Running Man and Queens of the Dead, just to name a few 2025 releases, O’Brian has cemented in the fact that she’s an artist with maximum range. Whether it’s another major franchise, an independently produced genre film, a potential awards season contender, or something entirely different, any film or show would be lucky to have O’Brian in its ensemble. Hopes are high that after a banner 2025, more filmmakers will take note and load up O’Brian’s schedule for years to come.

The Running Man is now playing in theaters nationwide.