Monday, July 17, 2017

Nico Tortorella Looks Ahead

Younger star Nico Tortorella recently sat down for an interview with Paper Magazine. Here's what he had to say:

Younger season 4 starts this summer. Are you excited for what you're going to get do outside of the central love triangle?
"Yeah! We pick up right where we left off and we get to see Josh after the fall. What does his life look like now? How is he going to navigate other relationships? What is he really looking for in a partner? I think we get to see Josh outside of the other series regulars, which is really nice. I have been wanting that. In television, the longer you work on a show, the more development characters get and the more the writers start writing for the actors that are playing the characters. I think that is definitely what is happening with Josh."

The Love Bomb, the interview podcast you host, started its second season this summer. You opened talking with your Menendez costar Courtney Love. How did that happen?
"Obviously, I knew I wanted her to be on the Love Bomb. She doesn't do interviews with people. We spent so much time together on the movie that the minute we locked eyes, we understood each other. We speak a language that other people don't really speak. We just got really close. I can't thank her enough for coming on. I think that the podcast has a way of creating this insanely comfortable space. We get to hear a story and energy from Courtney that isn't seen all the time. There is softness about her. There is hyper intelligence about her. There is vulnerability about her. It's just so beautiful. It's just not the story that's told when you hear Courtney Love and that was most important to me having her on the show. That's what I wanted to happen.

What's most interesting I think about our episode is that we don't talk about the one thing that everybody talks about when you're with Courtney Love. We don't even mention [Kurt's] name for the most part. I think that really is the core of the podcast. What is the story that I can tell that isn't being told?"

You get into some pretty heavy conversations with your interviewees—talking about sexuality and gender, abortion, coming out, grappling with family issues. Is that the goal of each episode?
"That's not the goal going into it. I'm not like, "What are the worst things that I can talk about?" It's a very organic conversation that happens. I didn't know that this was what the show was going to turn into at all.


I had been having these types of conversations with people in my life all the time. These are the relationships I like to have. If I'm bringing someone into my life and I'm having a conversation I want it to be real. I want you to be unapologetically yourself. I don't have time for the bullshit. I just don't anymore."

You're not into labels, and you've said in the past that you were hesitant about claiming "bisexual". What brought you around to identifying as bi?
"I use the term bisexual now because just the fact the term bisexual exists and the B exists in the community is such a beautiful thing. People fought for so long to have it there. I don't believe in the binary of gender. I have an issue with the bi part of bisexual. But that is what we got. I fall somewhere under the umbrella of bisexual but I have to put the fist in the air for the B.


I think that it's one thing for somebody that isn't in the public eye to be able to be a lot more free in how they identify. I have a responsibility at this point, to myself, and to the community and to the kids—really this is about the kids. I'm diligent in my vocabulary, in the language I am using. I just have this responsibility and I'm not perfect; I don't have the fucking answer for all of these things but I'm doing the work on myself."

Do you know if your family listens to your podcasts?
"They don't, honestly. I know that one of my little cousins would listen to them, but nobody in her family can know that she does. She texts me and it warms my heart. I come from a really conservative family for the most part. My ideals don't line up with everybody else in my family, which is okay at this point. I haven't had much backlash from it, anywhere!

I think it will be interesting to see what roles I will wind up getting after all of this. I'm sure there's a few studio heads somewhere that are like, "No fucking way am I hiring Nico as this next superhero or leading man or something." I'm sure that exists somewhere. But fuck you, if that's the reason you don't want to hire me to play somebody else. I'm not coming onto your show to play myself. Okay, fine. Bye girl. I'm over it."

That's such a rigid way of thinking that people still employ: "you can't possibly play this straight character convincingly because of your personal life."
"It's also relative to everybody's story, too. We live in a weird place doing weird things and having weird conversations to having weird lives. I'm going to play in it as long as I can. That really comes from RuPaul. He has done such incredible things. Every time I hear him talk I'm like, that's it. I can get emotional just talking about him. He has done work that has been so hard."

Read the full interview at Paper Magazine.




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