Date of Birth

14 December 1990, Norfolk, Virginia, USA

Birth Name

Thomas Grant Gustin

Height

6' 0½" (1.84 m)

Mini Biography

Thomas Grant Gustin, better known as Grant Gustin, is an American actor and singer. He is known for his roles as Barry Allen / Flash on the CW series The Flash and as Sebastian Smythe on the Fox series Glee.

Gustin was born on January 14, 1990 in Norfolk, Virginia. He is the son of Dr. Tina Lynne (Sweeney) Haney, a pediatric nurse, and Thomas Avery Gustin. During his high school years, Grant attended the Governor's School for the Arts program in Norfolk, Virginia for Musical Theatre. He also went to Hurrah Players Incorporated which is a theatre organization in Virginia. In 2008, he graduated from Granby High School and went on to attend the BFA Music Theatre Program at Elon University in North Carolina for two years. He left school to take the role of Baby John in the Broadway Revival Tour of West Side Story, and performed with the tour from its opening on September 30, 2010 through September 23, 2011.

On November 8, 2011, he debuted on the television series Glee as Sebastian Smythe, an openly gay member of the Dalton Academy Warblers. Gustin won the recurring role of Sebastian, a promiscuous and scheming character, after "an exhaustive, weeks-long casting search". He originally auditioned for a role as a tap dancer, but did not get the part. However, Ryan Murphy kept him in mind. He began filming the role early on Monday, September 26, 2011, after having finished his final West Side Story performance the Friday night before. Gustin began filming A Mother's Nightmare (2012), an original film for the Lifetime network, in late May 2012. The project also stars actresses Annabeth Gish and Jessica Lowndes, and was shot in Canada. On July 11, 2012, it was announced that Gustin had landed a major role in the independent film Affluenza. On September 13, 2013, it was announced that Gustin would play Barry Allen in the second season of Arrow. He was initially supposed to appear in three episodes, the last one serving as the backdoor pilot for a potential spin-off Flash series. However, the backdoor pilot plan was dropped in favor of a stand-alone pilot, titled The Flash. The pilot was picked up with an initial order of thirteen episodes, and the series premiered on October 7, 2014, with 4.8 million viewers, the most for a premiere on The CW in five years. Two weeks later, the network increased the episode order to a full season of twenty-three in all. On January 11, 2015, the show was renewed for a second season. On March 11, 2016, it was renewed for a third season. Gustin also reprised his role in an episode of CBS series Supergirl.

In 2017, he co-starred with Nick Robinson in William H. Macy's film Krystal (2017).

In 2018, he married Andrea Thoma.

Trivia

• He is of English, along with some German, Irish, and Welsh, and more distant Jersey/Channel Islander, ancestry. His paternal grandfather and great-grandfather were born in Canada, but many of Grant's family lines have been in the United States since the 1600s. His surname, Gustin, originates on the Isle of Jersey.
• In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Gustin stated that he has a Superman tattoo.
• Wrongly tweeted his phone number in October 2011 in grantgust twitter and caused 20 fans call him in 10 minutes. Changed phone number in 5 minutes through AT&T.
• Was a relationship with Hannah Douglass in the mid 2010s.
• He has played the same character (Barry Allen / The Flash) in six different television series: Arrow (2012), The Flash (2014), Vixen (2015), Supergirl (2015), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (2016) and Batwoman (2019).
• He has been married to La Thoma Gustin since December 15th, 2018.
• He and his The Flash (2014) co-star John Wesley Shipp, who played Barry Allen in The Flash (1990), were both born in Norfolk, Virginia.
• Has an older brother named Tyler and a younger sister named Gracie.
• April 2, 2019 - Was caught vaping in a bathroom on a Compass Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Vancouver which caused smoke alarms to go off. Once he landed in Vancouver, authorities gave Gustin a warning.
• Grant and his wife Andrea have 3 dogs, Nora, Rookie, and Jett.

Trademarks:

• Slender frame
  

Quotes

• Some of my favorite artists are Jason Mraz, Eric Hutchinson, Ben Folds, Bruno Mars, Mumford and Sons, Maroon 5 - their vibe is slightly different from all the pop stuff on 'Glee,' although some do fall into that genre.
• I was 'gay-bashed' when I was in school even though, you know, I'm not... I'm a straight guy that just happens to be what I do. So, it's easily relatable to me. It was awful. It's a hard time in a kid's life.
• My favorite actor that I look up to is Joseph Gordon-Levitt. His career is something I look up to, I just want to be that guy. He's always part of projects that have a lot of soul and that's what I want to do as an actor.
• 'Glee' found me. I didn't really go looking for it.
• I've never been passionate about just music, I've never seen myself going into music in that sense. My love for music has always been connected to the stories told through music, which is why I was drawn to theater and why I think 'Glee' is so powerful.
• My childhood dream was always to be on Broadway. I wanted to end up in TV and film. It's kind of flipped, and I'm not mad about it, but my childhood dream is Broadway and I want to end up there.
• [on dressing differently around co-star Stephen Amell] I told Stephen I won't wear a T-shirt on camera with him. I have to wear a blazer because [look at him].