Skylar Astin

Info

Full Name: Skylar Astin Lipstein
Date of birth: September 23, 1987 (39 years old)
Location: Nueva York, Nueva York
Country: USA

Skylar Astin has been active for 18 years, participating in 8 movies that average a 6.9/10 score.

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Tráiler en VOSE de 'Harry Potter' T1

Biography

On 21 September 2026, two days before his 39th birthday, Skylar Astin walked out in front of a London audience for the first time. The occasion was 'Cabaret' at the Kit Kat Club, the Playhouse Theatre production that has become the longest running version of the musical in West End history, and he had been handed the Emcee, opposite Sarah Hyland as Sally Bowles. Both were making their West End debuts. His run is booked through 12 December. For an actor most British viewers know from a cappella comedies and network television, it's a sharp change of register, though anyone who followed his early career saw it coming.

From New City to Broadway

He was born Skylar Astin Lipstein in New York on 23 September 1987, into a Jewish family, and grew up in New City, a quiet town in Rockland County. Summers went to Stagedoor Manor, a performing arts camp upstate. When he was fifteen his agent suggested dropping the surname for auditions and going by his middle name instead, and the shorter version stuck. He enrolled at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and left before finishing, because Broadway had made him an offer.

That offer was 'Spring Awakening', the rock musical that landed in 2006 with a cast of unknowns and an adaptation of Frank Wedekind's play about teenage desire and repression. Astin originated Georg, the schoolboy fixated on his piano teacher, and the belted high notes of 'Touch Me' were his. Directed by Michael Mayer, the show took eight Tony Awards including Best Musical and launched a whole generation: Jonathan Groff, Lea Michele and John Gallagher Jr. were all in it.

He stayed until 2008, and the group never really dispersed. In November 2021 the original cast reunited for a single benefit night for The Actors Fund, filmed for the HBO documentary 'Spring Awakening: Those You've Known'.

Sundance, Woodstock and a start in film

His first film was 'Hamlet 2' (2008), a broad comedy about a washed up drama teacher played by Steve Coogan. It premiered at Sundance and became one of the most expensive acquisitions of that year's festival. Next came 'Taking Woodstock' (2009), where Ang Lee cast him as John Roberts, one of the young men who put up the money for the festival. The film competed for the Palme d'Or at Cannes.

Jesse Swanson and the Pitch Perfect boom

Then came 'Pitch Perfect' in 2012, directed by Jason Moore, the man who had staged 'Spring Awakening' on Broadway. Astin played Jesse Swanson, the boy from the rival singing group who courts Beca (Anna Kendrick) by making her watch 'The Breakfast Club'. Made for around 17 million dollars, it took more than 115 worldwide and turned campus a cappella into a genre of its own for a few years.

'Pitch Perfect 2' (2015), directed by Elizabeth Banks, pushed the takings close to 290 million. He didn't return for the third film, where Jesse was quietly written out. Around the same period he turned up in the student comedy '21 and Over' (2013) alongside Miles Teller and Justin Chon, and voiced a minor character in 'Wreck-It Ralph'.

Twelve years of American television

Television gave him steadier work. He led 'Ground Floor', the TBS sitcom that ran from 2013 to 2015 about a financial analyst falling for a woman from the building's maintenance team, then played an aide to Nick Nolte's former president in 'Graves' (2016-2017).

In 2018 he took on an unusual job: replacing Santino Fontana as Greg Serrano for the fourth season of 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend', Rachel Bloom's musical comedy, which wrote the swap into the joke rather than hiding it. His warmest role followed in 'Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist' (2020-2021), as the best friend in love with Jane Levy's heroine. NBC dropped it after two seasons and the campaign to save it produced a Christmas film instead of a third year.

He headlined 'So Help Me Todd' from 2022 to 2024, as a scruffy private investigator hired by his lawyer mother, played by Marcia Gay Harden. CBS cancelled it in April 2024 despite a petition signed by tens of thousands of viewers. Film work has kept ticking over with 'Secret Society of Second-Born Royals' (2020) for Disney+ and the romantic comedy 'F*ck Valentines Day' (2026), with Marisa Tomei.

Off camera

His best known relationship started on the set of the first 'Pitch Perfect', where he met Anna Camp, the Bellas' Aubrey, though their characters never shared a storyline. They began dating in 2013, got engaged in January 2016 and married that September. It didn't last: the divorce was announced in April 2019 and finalised the following August. A relationship with the entrepreneur Lisa Stelly ended in 2021.

Since then he has released a steady trickle of pop singles under his own name, among them 'Without You', 'Chills' and 'Gravity', and he keeps going back to the stage whenever filming allows. He has been Tony in a Carnegie Hall 'West Side Story', the Baker in 'Into the Woods' at the Hollywood Bowl, and Seymour in the off-Broadway revival of 'Little Shop of Horrors' in 2022. London, and that Kit Kat Club microphone, is simply the biggest room he has tried so far.