Teo Halm

Teo Halm was born in Los Angeles, California. His mother's family is from France and Morocco and his father is Australian, of British and Czech descent.^[3][4]

Halm grew up performing in theater, performing in productions of The Sound of Music and The Music Man.^[3] Some of his first professional credits included a 2009 episode of the PBS series Nova and an UCLA alumni fundraising campaign.^[5][6] In the following years he appeared in a few short films. He was cast in a supporting role in the James Franco-directed Bukowski, an independent film adaption of Ham on Rye; the film was produced in early 2013 but was not distributed due to a copyright issue.^[7][8] Also in 2013, Halm was cast in the pilot of the Disney Channel Boy Meets World follow-up series Girl Meets World as Elliot, the son of Cory and Topanga;^[9][10] his character was ultimately cut from the series after the pilot was shot.^[11]

Halm had his most prominent film role in the 2014 sci-fi fantasy film Earth to Echo, for which he received top billing. The film premiered at the LA Film Festival and was released in theaters in July 2014. For his role as Alex, Halm received the Best Actor Award at the ninth annual PICK Awards.^[12] As a teenager, he had a supporting lead role in the movie Memoria, which premiered at the Austin Film Festival in 2015 and distributed in North America in 2016,^[13][14][15] and the film Camp starring Joey King and Nolan Gould. In 2018, Halm played the role of Theo in the independent feature film Spiral Farm; it premiered at Slamdance Film Festival in January 2019 during which it was nominated for Best Narrative Feature.^[16]

Since 2016, Halm has worked as a record producer and songwriter, and often collaborates with producers Michael Uzowuru, Frank Dukes, Mark Ronson, Carter Lang and Blake Slatkin.^[8][17] In 2019, he was named to Billboard's 21 Under 21 list of songwriters and producers, having co-written the Latin Grammy-winning^[18] song "Con Altura" by Rosalia (featuring J Balvin) and co-writing and co-producing "Mood 4 Eva" by Beyoncé, Jay-Z and Childish Gambino, from the Grammy-nominated album The Lion King: The Gift.^[8] In 2021, "Mountains", performed by Charlotte Day Wilson and co-written by Halm, was sampled in the track "Fair Trade" by Drake featuring Travis Scott from the album Certified Lover Boy.^[19] At the 2022 Juno Awards, Teo was nominated as a co-writer with Charlotte Day Wilson as Songwriter of the Year for "I Can Only Whisper."^[20] Omar Apollo's Evergreen (You Didn't Deserve Me at All) co-written and produced by Halm reached number 51 on Billboard Hot 100^[21] after going viral on Tiktok.^[22] Rolling Stone ranked it at number 29 on the 100 Best Songs of 2022.^[23] At the Latin Grammy Awards of 2022, Teo as a writer/producer of four songs on the Rosalia album Motomami won a Latin Grammy for Album of the Year and also best Alternative Music Album.^[24] At the 2023 Grammy Awards Motomami won Best Latin Rock or Alternative Album.^[25] Halm co-wrote and produced two songs on the SZA album SOS, Notice Me and Open Arms (with Travis Scott). The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart and stayed there for ten consecutive weeks, becoming the biggest streaming R&B album of the decade.^[26] In May 2024, Omar Apollo announced the June 28 release of his second studio album, God Said No, which was recorded in London’s legendary Abbey Road Studios with executive producer Teo Halm.^[27] In September 2024 Rex Orange County released his long-awaited fifth studio album The Alexander Technique with six tracks co-written and produced by his friend Halm.^[28] As a songwriter, he is signed to Universal Music Publishing Group and Electric Feel Publishing.^[29][30]