Who Is Brandon Perea? Meet the Fil-Am Hollywood Actor Starring in the New "Insidious" Movie

Brandon Perea has spent the past few years making a name for himself in high-profile movies, from Jordan Peele’s Nope to Twisters. Now, the Filipino-American actor is stepping into another major franchise with Insidious: Out of the Further, the sixth film in the supernatural horror series.

In the new movie, Brandon plays Nick Mendoza, who teams up with Gemma (Amelia Eve) as she discovers her ability to travel into the mysterious realm known as the Further. If you recognize Brandon from Nope or The OA, here are five things to know about the actor.

Brandon was born in Schaumburg, Illinois, and grew up around Chicago. He is of Filipino and Puerto Rican descent, something he has spoken about in interviews while discussing the significance of seeing more diverse actors in major Hollywood productions.

Speaking to The Diaspora Times in 2022, Brandon described himself as a “Filipino Puerto Rican kid” while reflecting on appearing on the Nope billboard alongside Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, and other members of the film’s cast. 

For him, seeing a diverse group of actors in a major studio movie was especially meaningful. “What’s great too about [Jordan Peele’s] writing is that it’s not just hammering someone’s ethnicity,” Brandon said. “It’s like, ‘we’re just humans.’” He added that he appreciated being part of a story where the characters were “handling a problem that doesn’t have to deal with what color their skin is.”

Before acting became his main career, Brandon was already performing professionally—on roller skates.

His father was a breakdancer, and Brandon picked up the art form as a kid before getting into jam skating, a style that combines roller skating with dance and breakdancing. According to Elle, he started skating at local rinks in Chicago before eventually traveling around the United States for skate shows during his early teens.

By ages 14 to 16, Brandon was spending much of the year on the road, performing at roller rinks across the country. He even appeared on America’s Got Talent with his jam-skating crew, Honor Roll. 

According to the actor, skating is still part of his life. Brandon told Elle that he continues to skate at rinks and around Venice Beach, where he can often be found combining his love for movement and music.

Brandon landed his first major television role as Alfonso “French” Sosa in Netflix’s sci-fi mystery series The OA. The show premiered in 2016 and ran for two seasons, with Brandon playing one of the central students caught up in its increasingly mysterious storyline.

Speaking to The New York Times in 2022, Brandon recalled feeling confident that more opportunities would follow after The OA, only to find himself struggling to land his next major role. “I had so much confidence where I was like, ‘Oh man, I’m probably going to book a bunch of stuff after this,’” he said. “It’s that weird middle ground where The OA was a good, life-changing job, but it’s not a piece on your résumé that’s going to beat out the A-list people that want the great stuff. You’re auditioning just in case they say no, and who the hell is going to say no to something great?”

Brandon played Angel Torres, the tech employee who becomes involved with OJ and Emerald Haywood in Jordan Peele’s Nope. The role became one of his most recognizable performances—and, interestingly, it changed significantly because of Brandon himself.

According to The New York Times, Brandon initially auditioned for a more straightforward electronics-store employee. Instead of playing the character as an overly cheerful salesperson, he approached him as someone who was bored with his job and far more interested in getting out of the store.

Jordan liked the interpretation enough to tell Brandon during their callback that the character he had created was very different from the one originally written. The director-screenwriter ultimately rewrote the role to accommodate Brandon’s take.

Brandon’s latest role takes him into another well-known horror franchise.

In Insidious: Out of the Further, he plays Nick Mendoza, the male lead opposite Amelia Eve’s Gemma. Gemma discovers that she can enter the Further, the supernatural realm at the center of the Insidious universe, and can bring entities from it back into the real world.

“I’ve recently been lucky and blessed enough to be in a [summer movie] every two years. I’d really like to continue that tradition. GRATEFUL!” Brandon wrote on Instagram.