Avan Jogia is the actor who plays Berkeley in the upcoming comedy-horror film Zombieland 2 (Zombieland: Double Tap), written by Rhett Reese, David Callaham, and Paul Wernick, and directed by Ruben Fleischer.
Zombieland: Double Tap, scheduled to hit U.S. theaters on October 18, 2019, is the sequel to Zombieland (2009), and stars Avan Jogia as Berkeley, alongside film stars such as Woody Harrelson as Tallahassee, Emma Stone as Wichita, Rosario Dawson as Nevada, Jesse Eisenberg as Columbus, Zoey Deutch as Madison, and Abigail Breslin as Little Rock.
Filming of Zombieland 2 began in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 14, 2019, and ended on March 15. The first trailer for the upcoming movie, released by Sony Pictures Entertainment on Thursday, introduces Avan Jogia as the hippie character called Berkeley because he is from Berkeley, California.
In the trailer, Little Rock, played by Abigail Breslin, runs away with Berkeley. While driving, Little Rock asks Berkeley if he’s got any weed. Berkeley at first pretends that he is offended that Little Rock profiled him as a likely weed smoker.
“Do I look like the type of person that would have weed?” he asks. But as Little Rock apologizes, he pulls out a plastic bag full of weed.
If you’ve seen the new trailer and wanted to know more about the actor who portrays Berkeley in Zombieland: Double Tap, here is everything you need to know.
Who is Avan Jogia?
Avan Jogia is a Canadian-British actor born in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, on February 9, 1992, which makes him 27 years old. His dad is of Gujarati Indian origin, while his mother is of English, Irish, Welsh, and French-Canadian ancestry. He speaks English, French, and some Gujarati. He has a little brother named Ketan, who works as a music producer in England.
He moved to the United States in his late teens to pursue an acting career.
His first major acting role was as Danny Araujo in Lifetime’s biographical TV film A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story (2006), directed by Agnieszka Holland. He also appeared in a recurring role as Ben Stark in the Syfy Channel series Caprica (2009). He played a regular role as Sam on The CW’s Aliens in America (2007).
Jogia also portrayed Beck Oliver in Nickelodeon’s Victorious (2010) and Danny Desai in ABC Family’s teen drama series Twisted (2013). He plays Ulysses Zane in Starz’s Now Apocalypse (2019).
He has fond recollections of playing Beck on Victorious.
“I had to learn a lot on Victorious (2010) because I had never done multi-camera before,” he said. “It’s like music: You need to be on it, and there’s no room for subtleties.”
He also appeared as Tajid Kalyan in the TV film Spectacular! (2009), Santos Delgado in Finding Hope Now (2010), Finn Covington in the TV movie Rags (2012), Teddy McNicholas in Ten Thousand Saints (2015), Dave Quinn in The Outcasts (2017), and as Nico Gladstone in I am Michael (2015).
Avan Jogia made his directorial debut with the short film Alex (2011). He also directed the web series Last Teenagers of the Apocalypse (2016) in which he played Bones.
He is known to be friends with Landon Liboiron (Declan Coyne in Degrassi: The Next Generation; Peter Rumancek in Hemlock Grove) and Josh Hutcherson (Peeta Mellark in The Hunger Games; Josh Futturman in Future Man). He is also best friends with Victoria Justice (Tori Vega in Victorious).
Jogia supports a number of human rights groups and charitable organizations. He is the co-founder of Straight But Not Narrow, a group that supports LGBTQ people.
He was also a member of a punk bank in high school and plays several instruments, including the piano and guitar.
Zombieland: Double Tap hits U.S. theaters on October 18, 2019.