Nico Tortorella is the resident hot guy on TVLand’s winning comedy Younger. He’s cool, he’s charming, his character Josh owns a tattoo parlour called “Inkburg” and spends most of his time worrying that he falls in love too easily and fending off the advances of basically everyone in Brooklyn. Josh is sensitive and kind despite his bro-y demeanour but he’s ultimately pretty basic. Nico Tortorella is not basic.

When I asked him what movie made him want to be an actor, his answer was Mighty Ducks 2, but now he’s a sworn Drag Race superfan. His day job these days is all TVLand hipster romancing but I first saw him as a conflicted murder cult member on the grim FOX drama The Following. He looks like your standard millennial Hollywood heartthrob- abs and tattoos and that haircut they all have- and he’s got the hot wife and half a million Instagram followers to match. But he’s also a poet. He hosted a podcast about love and relationships. He identifies as sexually fluid, non-binary and polyamorous. He’s into crystals and charcoal and his diet is part oldschool Italian and part hardcore all-liquid health nut. He’s pretty extra (and extra pretty). He’s an open book when it comes to artistic expression and personal revelation and deep insecurity and what it is to love another person.

We sat down for a short podcast recorded live at the ATX Television Festival and I asked him the sort of hard personal and philosophical questions you’re really not supposed to ask a total stranger with a public image to protect. Because he’s Nico Tortorella, he answered.

Click Here to read the rest of our coverage from the ATX Television Festival. 

CLICK HERE to subscribe to the My Entertainment World podcast on iTunes