Colin was born in Columbia, South Carolina. He began participating in local youth and community theater at the age of eight, which sparked an interest in him for the arts. In his early teen years, he began to take performing more seriously and signed with Atlanta agent Joy Pervis (known for discovering Dakota Fanning and Raven Symone) and was cast in a U.S. tour of Les Misérables. His first professional television booking was in 2008 when he co-hosted a Cartoon Network mini-series that aired in South America and Europe. In 2011, he made his film debut playing Elliot Gold in the ABC Family movie Mean Girls 2.