Dylan O’Brien is already a contender for the two most nuanced, contrasting performances of 2026. In Twinless, a hilarious and heartbreaking queer drama from writer-director James Sweeney, O’Brien embodies two identical twins: Rocky is a jovial gay man with an active sex life and colourful wardrobe, while Roman is a repressed, hoodie-wearing straight dude whose gym sessions are prompted by anger issues.

O’Brien, a 34-year-old American actor, is speaking to me a day before his other new film, Sam Raimi’s Send Help, premieres in London. His versatility has seen him do everything from YA franchises (The Maze Runner, Teen Wolf) and a Taylor Swift music video (he leads All Too Well: The Short Film) to oddball comedies (Curb Your Enthusiasm, Not Okay) and edgy thrillers (Caldo Lake, Ponyboi). However, O’Brien was cast by Sweeney after an insightful Zoom call in 2020, which is demonstrated by the actor’s psychological deconstruction of the two siblings.

“I never viewed Rocky as someone who was out early in his life,” explains O’Brien. “I think in high school he was a straight-masking person, and I wanted to embrace the physicalities that flourished out of him – he walks with his butt a bit more. Rocky represents his sexuality in a way that a lot of straight people feel bound. In straight-boy culture, you’re surviving this fratty sense of masculinity. Roman’s very enclosed and walks tough. He looks like a rock. But Rocky waves his ass, and has confidence and freedom.”

Aside from DNA, facial features, and certain emotional traits, the other thing Rocky and Roman share in common is Dennis, a gay loner played by Sweeney. After a one-night stand with Rocky, Dennis panics that he’s been ghosted: five consecutive texts go unanswered, despite a “perfect date” (eight hours awake, four hours asleep).

Confronting Rocky on the street, Dennis witnesses the crushing of his crush by a speeding vehicle. What follows is Dennis spying on Rocky’s funeral, and then befriending Roman at a support group for grieving twins, a deception that grows murkier when the catfished brother believes he’s made a genuine friend. Tragically, that’s exactly what happens: Dennis and Rocky become best buds, a bond that’s meaningful, all-consuming, and doomed.

“I’ve had all sorts of reactions from people experiencing different kinds of grief, not just twins,” says Sweeney on a Zoom call from LA. “Grief is multifaceted. I’m so touched the film affects people, but it’s also a good time.” For the 35-year-old Asian-American filmmaker, it’s midnight and four hours after he’s returned from Sundance 2026. “I did a victory lap of walking around Park City, getting recognised everywhere,” he says with a laugh. “I’m extra delirious from the lack of sleep.”

Twinless premiered a year ago at Sundance, winning the Audience Award for Best Drama and the Jury Prize for Best Actor; at the upcoming Independent Spirit Awards, it’s nominated for Best Film, Best Lead Performance, and Best Screenplay. Sweeney wrote the script when he was 25, shortly before the release of his debut feature, Straight Up, a screwball comedy about a gay guy (played by Sweeney) experimenting with heterosexuality. The theme continues in Twinless: Roman is jealous of how Rocky could flaunt his inner being.

“As an actor, Dylan is making capital ‘C’ Choices,” says Sweeney. “These are larger-than-life characters that feel so real because he brings so much pathos. In terms of him playing queer – I’ll take credit for giving him permission and pushing him in a direction to be fluid with the masculinity and femininity. A lot of times when straight actors play gay, they don’t lean into that out of fear of being vilified by the public, and are like, ‘We’re all the same, so I’m just going to play myself.’ I don’t mean that as a denigration to other straight actors, but I felt for Rocky to be attracted to Dennis, he would need to be comfortable with both masculinity and femininity – in my experience of dating.”

When asked the same question, O’Brien agrees. “Permission goes a long way,” he says. “James is a gay man, and coming from a place I could trust. We had a similar take on straight actors playing gay parts, especially in recent years: you started seeing straight actors playing a queer role completely straight. It started to feel inauthentic. It was nice to have his insight, support, and calibration. He’d be like, ‘Go crazy on this one. We can dial it back if it doesn’t feel real.’”

Due to the Christmas holidays, there was a two-week break during the shoot. Rocky’s scenes were all shot first, then O’Brien put on muscle for Roman’s storyline. “I was constantly contextualising how one saw the other one,” says O’Brien. “It’s Roman unleashing his feelings about Rocky in the motel scene, or the flashback of Rocky speaking about Roman with such love but at a loss.”

Moreover, Sweeney shot the first act on grainy 35mm to emulate nostalgia and enter Roman’s naïve perspective. When the movie shifts to digital, it’s when the story reveals Dennis’s secret backstory with Rocky. “It’s an intellectual exercise for me,” says Sweeney. “The idea is that it’s imperceptive to the audience, but they feel that something’s different.”

One unfortunate side-effect of O’Brien’s popularity and festival buzz was that, a year ago, Twinless leaked during Sundance’s online screenings. More specifically, the film’s sex scenes were posted online. “It’s literally a crime,” says Sweeney. “It has effects. A theatrical release in another country was cancelled because of piracy.”

Has it made Sweeney reconsider doing a sex scene in the future? “It has, honestly. It sort of became the narrative of the film. Oftentimes, my name will be removed from the sentence, and it’s ‘the twink bottom director’, so it feels really reductive. It felt like the most momentum we ever had was the leak, and it didn’t parlay into people watching the film at the same time.” He adds, “It’s interesting how entitled we are to have everything immediately accessible, especially when it comes to sex scenes. There are websites dedicated to just watching them, and it can feel violating. But the beauty of film is that it lives forever. I’m excited for people to know nothing about it in 20 years, and to go, ‘Oh my God.’”

“Something that gets lost is the human element,” says O’Brien on the same subject. “Everyone touches on the business standpoint and piracy. James really opened my eyes to the breach in humanity that it is.” As a result, Twinless was pulled from Sundance’s online platform. The festival became Twinless-less. “Many people didn’t get to see the movie. Maybe one more pair of eyes would have got us a crazy deal. I’m still wrestling with how I feel about it. Is merely commenting on it making it worse?”

While Twinless is a wordy, heartfelt tragicomedy about different forms of loneliness, it appears to be heavily influenced by Brian De Palma: split-screens, split diopters, conversation scenes that feel like action set-pieces, and the role of twins themselves (Sisters, Passion). Sweeney is less sure. “I guess it’s his ethos,” he says. “I recently stumbled upon an interview where he talked about seeing a gap in the marketplace to create something subversive but also commercial. I don’t know I ever thought Twinless would be a big commercial success, partially because it’s a queer film.” He adds, “A lot of things could have made it more commercial, like if I wasn’t in it.”

Either way, Sweeney, who hopes that 35mm prints of Twinless could still be struck for theatrical screenings, is clearly a gifted filmmaker who’s just getting started. O’Brien cites a specific scene – it involves toe-sucking – that gets audiences howling despite it preceding moments of utter heartbreak. In fact, when I saw it, the film routinely made the crowd laugh so loudly that the next bits of dialogue were missed. As Sweeney puts it: “I write comedy and direct drama. Somehow, I merge the two together.”