Early life

Sheridan was born in Elkhart, Texas. His mother, Stephanie (Wright) Sheridan, owns a beauty salon, and his father, Bryan Sheridan, is an employee of UPS. He has a younger sister, Madison. He attended the Elkhart Independent School District until he began his film career and received tutoring on film sets. Sheridan has graduated from high school. He is of English, as well as German, Swiss-French, Irish and Scottish, descent.

Career

Sheridan made his feature film debut in Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life, with Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain and Sean Penn, after an almost year-long casting search of more than 10,000 children from Texas and Oklahoma. The film premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and went on to be awarded the prestigious Palme d'Or and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

In 2012, he played the leading role of Ellis in Jeff Nichols's Mud opposite Jacob Lofland and Matthew McConaughey. The coming-of-age drama-thriller film premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and Sheridan received a Critics Choice Award nomination.

Sheridan also plays Gary Jones in the film Joe, which stars Nicolas Cage playing an ex-con who meets a 15-year-old boy, the eldest child in a homeless family headed by an alcoholic father, and is faced with the choice of redemption or ruin. For his role he has received the Marcello Mastroianni Award for best upcoming young actor at the 70th Venice International Film Festival.

In 2014, he played Will Cutter in the film The Forger, from a script by Richard D’Ovidio, which stars John Travolta. The film follows former child art prodigy and art forger Ray Cutter (Travolta), who arranges to buy his way out of prison so he can spend time with his ailing son (Sheridan) and father (Plummer), only to be forced to change his plans and commit one last big job for the syndicate that financed his early release.

In 2015, Sheridan starred in the three films that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. He co-starred opposite Gregg Turkington and Michael Cera in the drama Entertainment, played a prisoner in the film adaptation of the The Stanford Prison Experiment and in Rodrigo Garcia's drama Last Days in the Desert opposite Ewan McGregor, released May 2016. He also had a supporting role in the film adaptation of Gillian Flynn's Dark Places and the leading role in the horror comedy Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse.

Sheridan played the mutant Scott Summers / Cyclops in the 2016 film X-Men: Apocalypse, released on May 27.

Upcoming films

In June 2013, he joined the cast of a film written and directed by Kyle Wilamowski, Grass Stains, along with Kaitlyn Dever. He plays a teen discovering his first love (Dever). When a prank goes awry and causes the death of his girlfriend’s older brother, the boy must balance his secret guilt with his feelings for the girl. He will star in the The Yellow Birds (2016) opposite Alden Ehrenreich, Jack Huston and Jennifer Aniston. On February 24, 2016, Sheridan was cast as Wade Watts, a.k.a Parzival, the lead character in Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One, which is slated for a March 30, 2018 release.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2011	The Tree of Life	Steve
2012	Mud	Ellis
2013	Joe	Gary
2014	Last Man Standing	Justin	Episodes: "Tasers". "Mutton Busting" and "Here's the Kicker"
2014	The Forger	Will Cutter
2015	Entertainment	Eddie
2015	Last Days in the Desert	Son
2015	The Stanford Prison Experiment	Peter Mitchell
2015	Dark Places	Young Ben Day
2015	Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse	Ben Goudy
2016	X-Men: Apocalypse	Scott Summers / Cyclops
2016	The Yellow Birds	Daniel Murphy	Post-production
2016	Grass Stains	Conrad Stevens	Post-production
2018	Ready Player One	Wade Watts / Parzival	Pre-production

Commercial

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2016	Sky Fibre - X-Men Apocalypse - Television Advertisement	Scott Summers / Cyclops	Set after the events of X-Men: Apocalypse

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Work	Result
2012	Central Ohio Film Critics Association	Best Ensemble	The Tree of Life	Nominated
2013	Marcello Mastroianni Award at the 70th Venice International Film Festival	Best New Young Actor	Joe	Won
	Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award	Best Youth Performance	Mud	Won
	Chicago Film Critics Association Awards 2013	Most Promising Performer		Nominated
	Phoenix Film Critics Society Award	Best Performance by a Youth in a Lead or Supporting Role - Male		Won
	Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award	Youth in Film		Won
	Georgia Film Critics Association	Breakthrough Award	Joe, Mud	Nominated
2014	Robert Altman Award At Independent Spirit Awards	Best Ensemble	Mud	Won
	Critics' Choice Movie Award	Best Young Actor/Actress		Nominated
	Empire Awards	Empire Award for Best Male Newcomer		Nominated

[ Source: Wikipedia ]