Austin Abrams keeps fighting for his life onscreen — and the internet is falling hard.

Austin Abrams recently navigated a zombie outbreak amid a winter blizzard. Now, he’ll fight to survive inside a sperm whale’s belly. These circumstances couldn’t be further removed from reality — and yet Abrams, a 30-year-old actor from Sarasota, Fla., has found a way to make them believable. Abrams is the everyman hero of our dreams. 

Would we find ourselves amid a zombie apocalypse in the dead of winter? Or fighting for our lives inside the world’s largest toothed predator? Probably not! But Abrams plays these roles with such relatability — shrieking and yelping at the most appropriate moments — that he makes us feel like we’re struggling right there with him. He fully immerses himself in these characters. In fact, for Whalefall, Abrams even received an advanced scuba diving certification to better prepare for the role, according to the film’s director, Brian Duffield.

“That’s the stuff that seems to work the best for me, when I dive into it completely,” Abrams told Hero magazine about how he approaches his auditions. “Like, ‘I’m just doing this and I’m going to do everything I can to make this happen. What are the nooks and crannies that I need to fill to have this possibility be created?’ Every time I’ve done that — it definitely doesn’t always work out — but I feel like those are the times where it does work out.”

Abrams has had a pretty major year. Perhaps most notably, he played Bryan Hodukavich, a kindhearted yet aloof medical courier in Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil, which hit theaters in September. When Bryan agrees to make a treacherous, last-minute delivery to Raccoon City, he finds himself at the heart of a gory, fast-spreading zombie outbreak, which he couldn’t be less equipped to handle. 

Abrams’s performance in the gruesome horror-comedy garnered critical acclaim, while audiences, including the video game franchise’s most loyal fans, applauded his leading-man prowess. 

Viewers will soon get to see Abrams live out another nightmare scenario in Whalefall, a survival thriller based on Daniel Kraus’s novel of the same name, that hits theaters Oct. 16. Abrams plays Jay Gardiner, a scuba diver who plunges off California’s central coast in search of the remains of his estranged, late father, Mitt Gardiner (Josh Brolin). But during his dive, Jay is swallowed by a massive sperm whale and is stuck inside its stomach. He has one hour to devise and execute an escape plan before his oxygen runs out. 

If Resident Evil and Whalefall demonstrate anything, it’s that Abrams has a penchant for playing panicked characters who find themselves in impossible situations. His performances in both films also bring a refreshing degree of vulnerability to the leading male action hero.

“Neither of these guys were that kind of stoic dude,” he told the New York Times. “I also find it more interesting, at least in these cases, to be a fish out of water — or, I guess, a fish in water — and lean into that.”

And yet, when it comes to his own deserved rise to stardom, Abrams remains coolly nonchalant. When asked by the New York Times how he spends his downtime, Abrams replied, “I’m staring at walls, mostly. I don’t know, man. The things that probably everyone does.”

Where you might recognize him from…  

A man with range! Abrams may have recently been catapulted into the spotlight with his performances in Resident Evil and now, Whalefall, but he’s hardly new to the game. 

From 2015 to 2016, Abrams appeared on The Walking Dead as Ron Anderson, an Alexandra Safe Zone teen who shoots Carl’s (Chandler Riggs) eye out. Those of us who’ve ventured down the Matthew Rhys pipeline may also recognize Abrams from two 2018 episodes of The Americans, in which he plays a student intern who’s charmed by KGB spy Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell). He then had a recurring role on This Is Us, playing Kate Pearson’s (Chrissy Metz) abusive high school boyfriend, Marc McKeon, from 2019 to 2021. Perhaps his most notable mainstream television role is Ethan Daley, a sweet high schooler who dates Kat (Barbie Ferreira) and stars in Lexi’s (Maude Apatow) school play in Euphoria. 

He also starred opposite Lili Reinhart in 2020’s Chemical Hearts before playing Cami Mendes’s sleazy boyfriend in 2022’s Do Revenge. Then came Weapons in 2025, in which Abrams appeared unrecognizable as James, an unhoused drug dealer with oddly impressive stamina. 

But Resident Evil and Whalefall differed from Abrams’s prior roles in the way that he’s almost entirely alone for most of both films. Not having any scene partners can make for an isolating environment, Abrams told DiscussingFilm. 

“I feel like the word that comes to mind is doubt, you know? Just immense doubt,” Abrams said. “I mean, you have that with everything, but I feel like with this especially, just, like, are people going to be interested to watch you do this for this long, you know? Especially in a situation where there’s not necessarily like anything else to really cut to, you know? Because it’s so confined.” 

‘He was cute before but now he’s fine AF’ 

Truthfully, we’re surprised it didn’t happen sooner. Since the release of Resident Evil, it seems that even more fans have hopped on the Abrams thirst train. From endearing footage of his latest red carpet appearance to stills from his newest films, the internet is shamelessly swooning over the rising star. 

There are even calls to put Abrams in a romantic comedy — though longtime fans will remember Netflix’s Dash and Lily, the Nick Jonas-produced, feel-good holiday rom-com series in which he starred alongside Midori Francis, in 2020. Abrams portrayed Dash, a cynical teen who hates the holidays, while Francis played Lily, a quirky, holiday-loving caroler. The pair anonymously share their hopes, dreams, secrets and most precious locations in New York City by swapping a notebook back and forth — eventually falling for each other in the process. 

But even avid Dash and Lily rewatchers are hoping Abrams will consider starring in a romantic comedy in the near future. On X, one fan wrote that she hopes to see Abrams in a rom-com with his “facial hair & earrings” and “maybe even the mini mullet.” Abrams, she said, “was cute before but now he’s fine AF.” 

But Abrams probably isn’t aware of all the thirsting. The Whalefall star has made an effort to stay offline.

“I also feel like it seems to be this mental trap that I’ve seen a lot of people get in, trying to get your likes, and also people think it will get you more work,” he told Coup de Main magazine in 2019. “I suppose it might help get you the work, but once you get the work, you still need to be good… or something.”

While he might be off the social media grid, Abrams still knows his fans are showing up for him. 

“It’s only gratitude, man,” he told TheWrap during the Whalefall premiere. “I know that things like this don’t obviously happen often, you know? And if anytime, anyone just connects with something that you do, that’s what you hope.”