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Kyle Chandler made a name for himself by playing Eric Taylor in Friday Night Lights, but his daughter Sydney Chandler has steadily risen to fame. After playing Violet in Olivia Wilde‘s successful thriller film Don’t Worry Darling, Sydney was later cast as Wendy in the FX prequel series Alien: Earth.
Here’s everything you need to know about Sydney.
Sydney Is Kyle Chandler’s Eldest Child
Sydney is the eldest child of Kyle and his wife of over 25 years, Kathryn Macquarrie. Sydney has a younger sister named Sawyer. The Chandler family lives outside of Austin, Texas, though they frequent Los Angeles due to Kyle and Sydney’s Hollywood career connections.
Sydney Plays Violet in ‘Don’t Worry Darling’
Sydney’s Don’t Worry Darling character is a housewife and friend of Alice Chambers (played by Florence Pugh). They live in Victory, California, where their husbands work on the secret “Victory Project” which sparks Alice’s suspicions. Sydney explained how she related to Violet as a newcomer to Hollywood in an interview with WWD.
“Me, myself as Sydney was very new to this world, and so I felt my character very, very quickly, just kind of stepping in and soaking up the vibe on set and seeing how all of it works,” she said. “And so that kind of translated really perfectly for my character.”
Sydney also had a lead role in the FX on Hulu miniseries Pistols, about Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones and the band’s rise to fame. She played Chrissie Hynde, founding member of the Pretenders who almost married Steve and his bandmate Johnny Rotten for a work permit.
Sydney Didn’t Want to Be an Actor at First
“My dad’s an actor, and so you never want to do what your parents are doing,” Sydney explained in her WWD interview. “So I stayed very far away from that. And then I wanted to be a vet, and then I think it was my last year of high school when I was failing my math and my science, I was like, ‘maybe not.’ And then I went into creative writing, and I ended up taking an acting class in Austin here in town when I was studying for my writing. And I wanted to just do a character study on writers, on actors, and see people trying to act, that would be an interesting person to evaluate. And then I ended up just absolutely falling in love with it. My acting coach said, ‘you can stay in the class if you start auditioning,’ and it all just kind of went from there.”
Sydney’s Dad Gives Her Career Advice
Kyle, who is also famous from the movies Manchester by the Sea, The Wolf of Wall Street, and First Man, has been there for his daughter as she follows in his footsteps professionally.
“He’s been extremely supportive and we actually, we’ve had some really good talks about, you know. I want to make my own way through this, my own path through this, with my work,” Sydney told WWD. “And he’s been really, really just supportive. He’s my dad. He’s there for me,” she said.
Sydney Stars in the ‘Alien: Earth’ Series
Sydney currently stars as Wendy in the FX series Alien: Earth, a prequel to the sci-fi film franchise Alien. In May 2025, the actress spoke with Entertainment Weekly about her role, noting that Wendy is her “favorite character that [she’s] ever been able to play.”
Read the full article here
