Getting real. Nico Tortorella, Sutton Foster and Peter Hermann joined the Watch With Us podcast at the ATX TV Festival on June 10 to talk all things Younger season 5, but during the discussion, admitted that TV has completely changed as a landscape. For Tortorella, 29, so has his vision of what jobs he takes and which he turns down.
As for scripts he’s drawn to, they must involve “inclusion,” he told Us. “It’s a show about everyone, for everyone. I have been so much pickier with the work that I want to do and it aligning with the messaging that I have outside of television.”
The Following alum, who identifies as gender-fluid, revealed that the line between his personal message and the jobs he takes does not exist anymore.
“I’m OK with that, I’m celebrating it really. I think the more that I am playing believe in my real life and being public with it, the more interesting it is to wrap my head around actually playing make believe is and what that feels like and what that looks like and what that means to me. The importance of it moving forward has shifted,” he said. “If you would have asked me five years ago, ‘Where do you see yourself?’ ‘Being a movie star’ would have been the answer. I don’t know if that would be my answer anymore. Somebody asked me the other day, ‘What’s your dream role?’ Today with everything that going on in the world and in this country, my dream role is playing the most, authentic, unapologetic version of myself and what that looks like, not necessarily someone else.”
Following his answer, Tortorella’s costar Hermann chimed in.
“One of the beautiful things is we get to watch each other’s journeys as people. I’m just so taken with your (Nico) journey. I’ve always said that,” Hermann said on the podcast. “From season 1 when we met to now, the degree to which your pursuit of authenticity and what that means in the face of so much in this world and the good that it does for so many … I know that you know that. But a lot of it I’m sure that you don’t know. I think that it’s an incredible thing to witness and really privileged thing.”
Following his statement, Tortorella started to cry, thanking Hermann and hugging him. Listen to the entire Watch With Us podcast above and subscribe here.
Younger airs on TVLand Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET.
