Ryan O’Rourke

Published Aug 25, 2026, 12:00 PM EDT

Ryan O’Rourke is a Senior News Writer at Collider with a specific interest in all things adult animation, video game adaptations, and the work of Mike Flanagan. He is also an experienced baseball writer with over six years of articles between multiple outlets, most notably FanSided’s CubbiesCrib. Whether it’s taking in a baseball game, a new season of Futurama or Castlevania: Nocturne, or playing the latest From Software title, he is always finding ways to show his fandom. When it comes to gaming and anything that takes inspiration from it, he is deeply opinionated on what’s going on. Outside of entertainment, he’s a graduate of Eureka College with a Bachelor’s in Communication where he honed his craft as a writer. Between The IV Leader at Illinois Valley Community College and The Pegasus at Eureka, he spent the majority of his college career publishing articles on everything from politics to campus happenings and, of course, entertainment for the student body. Those principles he learned covering the 2020 election, Palestine, and so much more are brought here to Collider, where he has gleefully written on everything from the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes to Nathan Lane baby-birding sewer boys.

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The past few years have been eventful for Johnny Flynn, to say the least. Having broken out through roles in the Netflix sitcom Lovesick and the National Geographic series Genius, where he played a young Albert Einstein, he’s had no shortage of high-profile roles of late, between Netflix’s Ripley miniseries, Kate Winslet’s directorial debut, Goodbye June, and the Bill Nighy-led drama & Sons. This Christmas will see the ever-rising star take on his most magical assignment yet when he appears in HBO’s new Harry Potter series adaptation in the role of Lucius Malfoy, originally iconically played by Jason Isaacs. Before that, however, he’s about to begin a new life of hardship in 1800s Wisconsin.

Premiering this fall, the new historical western drama A Prayer for the Dying casts Flynn as a veteran named Jacob Hansen in the aftermath of the Civil War. Based on the novel of the same name by Stewart O’Nan, it recounts his move to the small Scandinavian settler-filled town of Friendship, where the war’s effects are felt the most. What should be a fresh start for Jacob and his family becomes a living nightmare with the sudden eruption of an epidemic and a devastating wildfire. As the community’s sheriff, undertaker, and pastor, he’s left with an impossible choice to either save his family or fight for the town that gave him a new purpose. It’s a chance for him to find redemption and save his soul, but he won’t have to do it alone.

Collider can exclusively share a new poster for the film highlighting its main trio of stars. Flynn stands in the middle, looking every bit like the grizzled Civil War veteran he’s playing while flanked by Kristine Kujath Thorp and John C. Reilly. An up-and-coming international star known for Ninjababy and the Mads Mikkelsen-led The Promised Land, Thorp embodies Jacob’s wife, Marta, who pulls him more towards the side of proactivity and protecting his family first and foremost when things begin going south in the town. On the flip side, the often-comedic Reilly, who’s next set to appear in David Leitch’s actioner How to Rob a Bank, represents the other end of Jacob’s predicament, playing the town doctor Guterson who will be at the forefront of combating the disaster about to unfold. From the fiery image below, it’s clear that tensions will run high as the sky turns a terrifying crimson and the end approaches.

The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you’re complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.

You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world’s indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you’re willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family’s weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what’s yours, you don’t escalate — you finish it. You’re not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone’s world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.

You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You’re a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they’ll do to get it. You’re not naive enough to think this world is fair. You’re smart enough to be the one deciding who it’s fair to.

You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you’re not above reminding people that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they’d be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they’re more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don’t need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.

You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you’re the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky’s world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You’ve made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.

Dara van Dusen made her feature directorial and writing debut with A Prayer for the Dying. In addition to the solid trio of Flynn, Reilly, and Thorp, she had a hefty international ensemble to work with that brought life to the town of Friendship, Wisconsin. Together, they created what became one of the standout projects by a freshman filmmaker at the Berlin International Film Festival back in February, earning a nomination for Berlinale’s Best First Feature Award. While critics were somewhat mixed, the positive reviews were over the moon with praise for Van Dusen as a creative to watch and for the performances, particularly by Flynn as the reluctant hero caught in a High Noon-like dilemma and by Reilly in a rare completely serious turn.

A Prayer for the Dying rides into theaters on October 9. Check out the official poster above.