Griffin got his big break when renowned director Steven Soderbergh came to Chicago to cast the movie Contagion (2011). At the age of just 7, Griffin would play Clark Morrow, the son of Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow’s characters.
Soon after, he appeared on NBC’s Chicago Fire (2012), and was cast in the the pilot episode of Sam & Cat (2013), which quickly became Nickelodeon’s highest-rated series. He continued as a recurring guest star with additional appearances on the hit show.
In 2014, Griffin appeared on USA Network’s comedy series Sirens (2014), created by Denis Leary & Bob Fisher. Griffin was cast to play the younger brother of Michael Mosley’s character, Johnny.
At just 10, Griffin landed his first lead role as Alden Blakemore in the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie One Christmas Eve (2014). His on-screen mom, Anne Heche, took Griffin under her wing during his largest project yet. The TV movie was shot in Winnipeg, Canada and Griffin worked closely with a litter of beagle pups.
As a young Michael Dorman in Amazon’s series Patriot (2015), Griffin continued his acting adventures by smoking his first (herb) cigarette, shooting a gun and riding a bull. The popular series was created and directed by fellow Chicagoan, Steve Conrad.
For The Exorcist (2016) on Fox, Griffin studied and adopted Ben Daniels’ unique British dialect in order to play Father Marcus as a boy. He performed an exorcism on a possessed man during a terrifying scene shot in a Chicago slaughterhouse.
After his success in the growing Chicago production market, Griffin had the opportunity to work on the Universal Studios back lot on a multi-cam comedy pilot, The Kicker (2016), produced by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock for CBS. He was cast as a series regular and It was his first experience in front of a live studio audience. Griffin and co-stars Geoff Stults, David Spade, JoAnna Garcia Swisher and J.B. Smoove kept everyone laughing throughout rehearsals and the live performance.
At 13, Griffin was cast to play a young Jack O’Connell in the Netflix western Godless (2017), written and directed by Scott Frank. The limited series was shot in Santa Fe, where Griffin learned to ride a horse, speak with a southern dialect and found a new mentor in co-star Jeff Daniels. Coincidentally, the series was also produced by Steven Soderbergh, who gave Griffin his first job.
