Wyatt Oleff

Background

Wyatt Jess Oleff was born on July 13, 2003, in Chicago, Illinois. He spent the first seven years of his life in Chicago and then his family moved to Los Angeles. He began telling his parents about his interest in performing when he was just five years old.

Soon after, he landed his first-ever acting role in a Coldwell Banker commercial. He began acting in modest roles on television and in 2013, at the age of ten, he earned the lead guest star role of Young Rumplestiltskin on A.B.C.’s show “Once Upon a Time,” for which he was required to speak with a Scottish accent. While he and his mother considered passing on the opportunity, he eventually nailed the accent with the help of a dialect coach. After a few years on television, he made his film debut in 2014 with the romantic comedy “Someone Marry Barry.” His major break came the same year when he was cast to play young Peter Quill in “Guardians of the Galaxy,” the younger version of the character played by Chris Pratt. He later reprised the role in the 2017 sequel and also played Stanley Uris in the hit film “It.” Oleff’s also a YouTuber who started posting skits in May 2017.

Oleff got into a Twitter feud with internet personality, model, and makeup artist James Charles in October 2017. Charles slammed his latest film “It” as “awful,” claiming it was too predictable and didn’t terrify him. Fans of the film, as well as Oleff’s co-star Finn Wolfhard, blasted Charles on Twitter shortly after. A month later, Charles posted a video on how to perform the makeup for Pennywise the Clown, the film’s villain. After publicly criticizing the film, Oleff called him an opportunist for profiting from it. After Shane Dawson sent a hilarious tweet asking whether they might be friends, the two resolved their rivalry.