Thomas Grant Gustin (born January 14, 1990), better known as Grant Gustin,[1] 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.

Life and career

Gustin was born in Norfolk, Virginia. He is the son of Tina Haney, a pediatric nurse, and Tom 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, 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.[11] However, the backdoor pilot plan was dropped in favor of a stand-alone pilot, titled The Flash.[12] 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.[13][14] Two weeks later, the network increased the episode order to a full season of twenty-three in all.[15] On January 11, 2015, the show was renewed for a second season.