Stephen Farber of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "He is compelling even when he's just watching silently and reacting to the other characters. When he has to explode with rage or manic energy, he's startling. And in the drama competition, his reading of a climactic speech from Death of a Salesman suggests that this young actor has a bright future in many different media—I don't know if I've ever seen a better performance of that speech."[52] Stephen Holden of The New York Times compared him to James Dean.[53]