Darren Dalton made his screen debut as Randy Anderson, the Soc, in Francis Ford Coppola's The Outsiders (1983), a drama based on the novel by S.E. Hinton. He has since starred in over 30 films and has also worked as a screenwriter and producer. He has collaborated with C. Thomas Howell on a number of projects including War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave (2008) and The Day the Earth Stopped (2008). Dalton is probably best known for his starring role in the John Milius World War 3 film Red Dawn (1984) in which he co-starred with Howell, Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, and Lea Thompson.