Jalen Thomas Brooks

In Off Campus (2026), Jalen Thomas Brooks helps make a hockey house feel as though people actually live there. Playing John Tucker alongside Antonio Cipriano, he gives the shared scenes a comfortable rhythm of insults and toast. Stephen Kalyn gets most of the laughs; Brooks contributes to the ease between them. We warmed to the housemates because that casual needling made their familiarity believable. It is modest work, but it matters in a romance whose supporting company is often more enjoyable than the main business.

After recurring television work including Walker (2021), his feature debut came in Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving (2023). Brooks plays Bobby Di Stasi, one of two boys with a claim on Nell Verlaque’s Jessica, with Milo Manheim playing the other. Both boys are thinly written, in a group of teenagers already difficult to tell apart. We would not blame Brooks for a part sketched in a line, though there is little here to justify making large claims for him either. It is good slasher entertainment, but not much of an introduction to what he can do.

Nurse Mateo Diaz in The Pitt (2025) continued the ensemble work; Off Campus gave him a series-regular role. The medical drama and hockey romance fit a pattern of casting him as a calm, supportive figure within a busy group. Ella Bright and Belmont Cameli carry the central pairing in Off Campus. Brooks and Cipriano have the less conspicuous job of making their surroundings feel inhabited, and they do it well.

There are limits to what his company can fix. Off Campus takes eight episodes over material that would have benefited from being cut to six, and the housemates cannot cure that slackness. Try it for Brooks if college romance appeals, allowing for the pace. We would welcome a script that gives him the chance to be difficult company.