Last weekend we saw Backrooms (2026), which is not about the backrooms of gay bars where you get down with dudes. Based on a creepypasta, it stars Chiwetel Ejofor as Clark, a struggling furniture store owner and failed architect, who stumbles onto an Upside Down: endless yellow-walled office rooms, most empty, some with piles of melting chairs, bloody clothes, a Christmas tree, a mannikin equipped with a recording in Urdu...and misshapen, half-melted humanoids.
Clark recruits his employee Kat and her boyfriend Bobby (Finn Bennett), who photographed one of his commercials, to explore with him. When he knocks on their door, Bobby answers shirtless.
As we have seen with the shirtless parking valets on Suburgatory, unexpected beefcake still has power. . This screenshot doesn't capture the sudden joy of recognition. I went home and looked up Finn Bennett.
Preliminary research yielded this photo on his Instagram, with the comment "I'm just a boy who likes to have fun." I can see that.
That's enough to start a profile.
I was expecting a recent university graduate with some theatrical experience and a few minor on-screen roles, but it turns out that Finn won the Trophée Chopard at Cannes in 2025, and was named a Star of Tomorrow by Screen International.
He has his own wikipedia page, and so do his parents:
Ronan Bennett, famous novelist and screenwriter.
Georgina Henry, famous journalist, who died in 2014
Finn was born in December 1999 in Hackney, a rough but rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of East London. He took acting classes at Stagecoach Performing Arts in Islington, and appeared in a 2013 episode of Top Boy, his dad's show about drugs and gangs in East London. I know the area very well.
After taking his A-levels in maths, Finn applied to Queen's University, Belfast. In Britain you have to apply to a field of study, so he found anthropology near the top of the list and figured "that's good enough. I'll study that." But then he decided to forego uni altogether in purusit of an acting career, and worked in pubs and as a landscaper while awaiting his big break. I'll check the highlights for gay characters:
Four episodes of Liar (2017-20), about a teacher who accuses the guy she went on a date with (Ioan Gruffud) of rape. He plays Ewen, one of her students.
Left: is that his ear or his dick?
Four episodes of National Treasure: Kiri (2018): A black girl is murdered just as she is about to be adopted by a white family. He plays Simon, the family's teenage son, a suspect (spoiler alert: he didn't do it).
Hope Gap (2019): A husband and wife announce to their adult son (Josh O'Connell) that they're divorcing. According to the AI, Mom encounters a young man who has just lost his boyfriend, but I don't know if he is Finn's character.
Finn's big break came with the ancient Roman drama Domina (2021): Livia Drusilla struggles to acquire power, eventually becoming the wife of Gaius (Augustus Caesar). Marcellus (Finn) is forced to marry Gauis' daughter Julia. Sorry, AI, he's not just "implied," he has an explicitly sexual realtionship with his slave Aprio (Pedro Leandro).
More after the break. Caution: Explicit.