Fans know him as Brandon Sklenar, but the 1923 and It Ends With Us actor was born Brandon Feakins.

The 34-year-old New Jersey native — raised by his dad, Bruce Feakins, who worked in construction, and his mom, former hairdresser Francine — adopted Sklenar, which he has been using professionally.

But Sklenar was no random selection: It’s his mother’s maiden name. So why did he make the switch?

“No one has ever asked me that,” he tells PEOPLE. “I took it because growing up, everyone would always mispronounce my last name. And it drove me absolutely crazy.”

“So I also didn’t want to pick something completely arbitrary that meant nothing. So I took my mother’s maiden name because it was real,” he adds.

But don’t people mispronounce Sklenar (pronounced Skluh-NAHR) too?

“They do,” he admits. “But I could deal with that because I didn’t grow up with it being mispronounced. It was like an adult thing.”

“And now the more people are getting to know who I am, it’s happening less and less, but I just couldn’t live with the other one being mispronounced in a public forum, because I would lose my mind because I just grew up with it constantly,” he adds.

More people are indeed getting to know who Sklenar is, especially recently. He’s been “pounding away for the last 16 years” at his acting career, and finally broke out in late 2022 playing Spencer Dutton in the Yellowstone prequel 1923.

His supporting role in 2024’s hit adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s novel It Ends With Us raised his profile even more. He now appears in the new thriller Drop, costarring The White Lotus alum Meghann Fahy.

In the film, he plays Henry, a photographer on a first date with single mom Violet (Fahy), who keeps getting mysterious air-dropped messages to her phone. The anonymous sender becomes more and more threatening, and ultimately demands that she kill her handsome companion — or Violet’s son will be murdered.

“I was excited to do it for sure,” he says. “I was excited to work with Meghann. I like a lot of horror films. I watch a lot of horror films of all kinds. I love campy horror films. I like really gnarly horror films. I like art house horror, commercial, big budget stuff. It’s just exciting.”

Sklenar says he liked the “challenge” of turning Henry — who is essentially sitting at a dinner table for the better part of 90 minutes — into an interesting character.

“That was why I wanted to do it more than anything from an acting standpoint, because I was like, I don’t know how to do this,” he admits. “There’s no big stunts. There’s no jump scares. There’s no blood and gore. It’s just like two people talking.”