Brian O'Halloran

Brian Christopher O'Halloran (born December 20, 1969) is an American actor, producer, and podcaster best known for playing Dante Hicks in Kevin Smith's debut 1994 film Clerks and its 2006 and 2022 sequels Clerks II and Clerks III. He has also made appearances in most of Smith's View Askewniverse films, either as Dante Hicks or one of Dante's cousins.

Career
O'Halloran's first role was as main character Dante Hicks in Kevin Smith's film Clerks, in 1994. He has returned many times as Dante or another of the Hicks family in films by Smith.

O'Halloran is the lead actor in the 2000 film Vulgar, about a small town clown who is traumatised after he is attacked during one of his performances. Writer/director Bryan Johnson wrote the lead specifically with O'Halloran in mind.

He has worked on theatre productions since high school. He has said on the subject of doing theatre: "Oh, yeah. It's the best training you can do, as an actor. To be in front of a live audience. There's no 'Stop, wait, oh geez, what was that line again?' It just sharpens your reflexes. It sharpens your interaction. And it definitely sharpens your memory because you have to know an entire show from beginning to end."

Since Clerks (1994), O'Halloran has primarily been a stage actor, working with The Boomerang Theatre Company, The New Jersey Repertory Company and The Tri-State Actors Theatre, among others. In 2020, O'Halloran began presenting his own pop culture podcast, The O'HalloRant, on YouTube.

Personal life
A first-generation Irish-American, with parents from Galway and Roscommon, O'Halloran was born in Manhattan, New York City, and lived in Old Bridge Township, New Jersey from the age of 13. His father died when O'Halloran was 15 years old. He graduated from Cedar Ridge High School. He has two older brothers.