Jack Reynor Lands Starring Role in 'Transformers 4'

The Associated Press, Tuesday, January 8, 2013, 1:36pm (PST)

The Hollywood Reporter -- Michael Bay has picked relative newcomer Jack Reynor for the second male lead in the fourth Transformers movie.

Bay is in the midst of casting the next installment, which will star Mark Wahlberg. In November, the director and Paramount were screen-testing actresses to play Wahlberg's daughter as well as actors to play the daughter's boyfriend.

As THR reported, Reynor was among five young men tested. The others were Luke Grimes, who appeared on ABC's Brothers and Sisters and is in Taken 2; Landon Liboiron, who co-starred on Fox's Terra Nova and will be seen in the upcoming Netflix series Hemlock Grove; Australian Brenton Thwaites, who starred in the telefilm Blue Lagoon: The Awakening; and Weeds co-star Hunter Parrish.

Reynor is coming off wrapping his first studio film, the DreamWorks comedy Delivery Man, starring Vince Vaughn. He booked that role just days after arriving in Los Angeles from the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, where he was attending the premiere of the Irish drama What Richard Did.

"He is an Irish kid that came to America with 30 bucks in his pocket. Pretty ballsy. Seriously, who does that?" Bay wrote on his website. "Anyway, I spotted him in a great little Irish movie WHAT RICHARD DID. This kid is the real deal."

Bay made it a point on his site to say that the new Transformers movie, despite an all-new cast, is not a reboot but follows 2011's Transformers: Dark of the Moon. “This movie takes place exactly 4 years after the war in Chicago,” he wrote. "The story makes a very natural transition, and reason as to why we have a whole new cast. This Transformers will feel very different then the last three. We are embarking on a new trilogy." Reynor, who also starred in Kirsten Sheridan's Dollhouse, is repped by WME, in the U.K. by ARG and in Ireland by MacFarlane Chard. He is additionally repped by Sloane Offer.

Related article on THR.com:

'Transformers 4' Considering Shoot in Thailand

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