Having started her screen debut at the age of 14 with the television show Sheena in 2000, Britt Robertson is an American television and movie actor. Despite starting her career very early in her life, the actress’ breakthrough came with her performance in the 2015 romantic drama
The Longest Ride for which she not only won recognition but also received a Teen Choice Award nomination for Choice Movie Actress: Drama. Some of her other noteworthy performances were seen in movies such as The First Time,
Tomorrowland, and
The Space Between Us.
Early Life
Brittany Leanna Robertson hails from Charlotte, North Carolina, and was born on the 18th of April, 1990 to Beverly and Ryan Robertson. Although she was born in North Carolina, she spent most of her childhood in South Carolina. After her parents divorced, they both were soon remarried and have three children with their respective partners, making Robertson the eldest of the seven siblings. Owing to her mother’s concerns about public schools, Robertson was homeschooled. However, she began acting at a very young age and joined the Greenville Little Theater in South Carolina.
At the age of 14, she traveled to Los Angeles with her grandmother in hopes of bagging roles in TV series. However, her grandmother moved back to South Carolina in the next two years. Robertson started living alone since the age of 16 after she was given the opportunity to work in few television series.
Personal Life
Robertson met
Dylan O’Brien while shooting the romantic teen-comedy The First Time in 2011. The same year, the on-screen couple became an off-screen couple and have been dating ever since.
Television Career
At the age of ten, Robertson was seen in a single episode of Sheena, where she was cast to play the younger version of the title character in 2000. She was then seen in a number of TV movies such as Tangled Up In The Blue, Growing Pains: Return of the Seavers, Women of a Certain Age, and Jesse Stone: Night Passage, to name a few, before she bagged roles in shows such as The Winner, and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Despite having appeared in a number of television projects, her breakthrough came with the show Swingtown where she played the recurring role of Samantha Saxton.
She then appeared in single episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Three Rivers. Her most noted television performance continues to be her portrayal of Lux Cassidy in the 2010 American drama series Life Unexpected, where she played the lead role. Following this, she bagged lead roles in the 2011 supernatural teen drama The Secret Circle, playing the role of Cassie Blake, and in the 2012 science-fiction mystery drama Under the Dome, where she played the role of Angie McAlister. While she was seen in the second season of the comedy-drama Casual in 2016, she was signed to play the lead role of Sophia Amoruso in the 2017 Netflix original series Girlboss.
Movie Career
Three years after her television debut, Robertson was cast in the 2003 family movie The Ghost Club, marking her movie debut and also winning her a Young Artist Award nomination for Best Performance in a TV Movie, Miniseries or Special – Leading Young Actress. Following her debut, she was seen in the 2006 comedy Keeping Up with the Steins, where she played the role of Ashley Grunwald. The movie was panned by the critics although most of them stated that it was worthy of being a sitcom as against a full-length film. Playing
Steve Carell’s daughter, Robertson was seen in the 2007 comedy-drama
Dan in Real Life, which opened to fairly positive reviews and ranked second at the box office on its opening weekend.
Next, she was seen in the horror movie From Within in 2008, where she was seen playing the role of the protagonist’s best friend, Claire. Appearing alongside
Naomi Watts and
Annette Bening, Robertson was cast in the 2009 Mexican-American drama Mother and Child. The movie opened to positive reviews and was awarded the Grand Prix du Jury 2010 at the Deauville American Film Festival. Despite appearing in a series of movies such as Frank, Triple Dog,
Scream 4, and Family Tree, Robertson only won recognition for her performance in the romantic comedy The First Time opposite
Dylan O’Brien, whom she began dating on the sets of the movie. The teen movie opened to mixed, mainly positive, reviews.
Winning a Teen Choice Award nomination for Choice Movie Actress: Drama for her portrayal of Sophia Danko, Robertson was seen in the 2015 American romantic drama
The Longest Ride, based on Nicholas Sparks’ novel of the same name. Although the movie ranked third at the box office on its opening weekend, it received mainly negative reviews from the audience and critics alike. However, she was praised by her co-star, the Hollywood stalwart,
George Clooney for her work in the 2015 science-fiction mystery adventure movie
Tomorrowland. Playing the role of a tech-savvy teen, Casey Newton, Robertson received a Teen Choice Award nomination under the category of Choice Movie Actress: Sci-Fi/Fantasy.
In 2016, Robertson played one of the lead roles in the American drama
Mr. Church, the titular character of which was played
Eddie Murphy. The movie sees Robertson play the role of a young, college teen, Charlie Brooks, who is unable to come to terms with her mother’s impending death and grows close to
Mr. Church, who attempts to take care of Charlie’s mother. Despite the emotional subject of the movie, it failed to wow the audience and also opened to negative reviews from critics. Her other projects include the independent 2016 horror movie
Jack Goes Home, the 2017 comedy-drama
A Dog’s Purpose, and the American romantic science fiction
The Space Between Us in 2017.