Biography
An impressive turn as a young man hardened by apocalyptic events on "Fear the Walking Dead" (AMC, 2015- ) helped to boost actor Lorenzo James Henrie from juvenile supporting roles to more nuanced feature turns on series like "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." (ABC, 2013- ). Born June 29, 1993 in Phoenix, Arizona, he decided to follow in the footsteps of his older brother, Disney Channel star David Henrie, and pursue a career in acting, which began in 2004 with a guest role on "Malcolm in the Middle" (Fox, 2000-2006). A recurring role as the adopted son of Jeremy London's temporary minister, Chandler Hampton, on "7th Heaven" (The WB/CW, 1996-2007), set Henrie's career in motion, and he worked steadily on episodic television series, including "Cold Case" (CBS, 2003-2010), and in several features, most notably as a bullying young Vulcan in J.J. Abrams' feature film adaptation of "Star Trek" (2009) and as a rare lead in the award-winning independent drama "Almost Kings" (2010), as a boy who discovers his older brother's connection to a group of predatory teenagers. Henrie landed his breakout role in 2015 when he was cast as Chris Manawa, the rebellious son of high school teacher Cliff Curtis and his ex-wife, Elizabeth Rodriguez. Chris's story arc reflected the psychological toll taken by extreme trauma - in this case, an outbreak of the living dead - by his two-season transformation from an intelligent high schooler to a cold-blooded killer who abandoned his family to take up with a new, more brutal group of survivors. That decision proved to be his undoing, as Chris was murdered by the group in the penultimate episode of "Walking Dead's" second season. The exposure afforded by the series gave Henrie's star profile a boost, which in turn led to a role on "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." as Gabe Reyes, the developmentally disabled younger brother of Robbie Reyes, whom series and Marvel Comics fans knew as the fifth mortal to assume the identity of the skull-faced avenger Ghost Rider.
