Alden Ehrenreich

Alden Caleb Ehrenreich is an American actor born on November 22, 1989, in Los Angeles, California. The only child of Sari Ehrenreich, an interior designer, and Mark Ehrenreich, an accountant, he was named after director Phil Alden Robinson, a family friend. His stepfather, Harry Aronowitz, is an orthodontist. Ehrenreich is Jewish, with ancestral roots among emigrants from Austria, Hungary, Russia, and Poland, and was raised in Reconstructionist Judaism.

Ehrenreich began acting at Palisades Elementary School in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, and continued at Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California. After high school, he studied at New York University's Stella Adler Studio of Acting without completing his degree. His entry into professional acting came through an unusual circumstance: Steven Spielberg encountered a comedy video Ehrenreich had made while attending a friend's bat mitzvah reception, where Spielberg's daughter was also present. Spielberg arranged for him to meet with DreamWorks' casting director, which led to early television appearances on Supernatural in 2005 and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. In 2009, Ehrenreich co-founded a New York City collaborative group called The Collectin with friend Zoë Worth, bringing together actors, writers, producers, and directors to work on films and theater.

His film career began with Francis Ford Coppola, who cast him as Bennie Tetrocini in Tetro after an audition that included reading from The Catcher in the Rye. The film was released in limited release in 2009 to generally positive reviews, with critics singling out Ehrenreich's performance. He appeared again in Coppola's Twixt in 2011. In 2013, he took on the lead role of Ethan Wate in Beautiful Creatures, played Whip Taylor in Park Chan-wook's thriller Stoker, and appeared as the stepson of Cate Blanchett's character in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine. His breakthrough arrived in 2016 with the Coen brothers' comedy Hail, Caesar!, in which he played Hobie Doyle alongside Josh Brolin and George Clooney, earning particular praise from critics. That same year he starred as Frank Forbes in Warren Beatty's Rules Don't Apply, and appeared in The Yellow Birds, which premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival alongside Tye Sheridan, Jack Huston, and Jennifer Aniston.

Ehrenreich took on one of his most prominent roles when he was cast as Han Solo in Solo: A Star Wars Story in 2018, depicting the character's early life prior to the events of the original 1977 Star Wars. He subsequently headlined the NBC dystopian series Brave New World in 2020, based on Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel. In 2023, he appeared in three notable projects: the comedy Cocaine Bear, directed by Elizabeth Banks; the thriller Fair Play, co-starring Phoebe Dynevor; and Christopher Nolan's biographical film Oppenheimer in a supporting capacity. In 2025, he played Ezekiel Stane in the Marvel Cinematic Universe miniseries Ironheart and appeared in Zach Cregger's horror thriller Weapons, which he joined in 2024. He also joined the cast of Anton Corbijn's Switzerland, alongside Helen Mirren, and The Last Resort with Daisy Ridley.

In 2026, Ehrenreich made his Broadway debut in the play Becky Sharp, adding a stage credit to a career built primarily in film and television.