In mid-2016, Younger star Nico Tortorella came out as bisexual and gender fluid. Since then, they've been a major advocate for LGBTQIA+ issues, and even released a memoir on the subject, titled Space Between: Explorations of Love, Sex, and Fluidity, in 2019. Tortorella's next debut on the small-screen will be as Felix Carlucci, who is gay, in The Walking Dead: World Beyond
During a set visit for World Beyond attended by CBR, Tortorella explained what playing a queer character on the show means to them and the importance of such representation right now.
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"The romance, historically, on the Walking Dead isn't ever what the show is about," Tortorella explained. "It's not what drives storyline. It's always a fight for survival. I feel like love takes a backseat to that a lot on the show. And Felix is very much so a hero. He protects the people around him in a way that's contradictory to the stereotype of what a gay character usually is on television. And that's why I was really excited to play this role."
Tortorella then explained just why they chose to take the job in the first place. "You know, I was in Bali doing some work with queer youth all throughout Indonesia," they said. "When I got the phone call about this job. I had an audition. I jumped on the call with Scott [Gimple] and Matt [Negrete] for a couple hours about this job, and what it meant for the show to come out 10 years later. And I was, like, in the queer theoretical spiral in Indonesia working with these kids already. And so I just got a phone and I was going for it."
"This show coming out 10 years later, it's different," they continued. "I feel like the stakes are raised across the board -- politically, socially. And obviously, the art that we create is a mirror of what's happening. And I think that this binary divide that exists in our country and the world right now has never been stronger. And what Scott said to me that really grabbed my attention was the only binary that exists [...] post-apocalypse is dead and alive. And that just really struck a chord with me. I want to live in that world. I want to know what that feels like. [...] The diversity was a huge thing coming into it. You know, we have people from all walks of life on this show and genders, sexualities, race, religions. It was a no brainer for me."
Tortorella later noted the importance of seeing this type of representation on TV, saying, "Right now, legislation is getting passed across the country that is not good for queer people. We're definitely going backwards, and to see this type of representation really matters. [...] We only believe what we see, and we've only seen one thing since the beginning of film and television."
Created by Scott Gimple, Robert Kirkman and Matt Negrete, The Walking Dead: World Beyond stars Aliyah Royale, Alexa Mansour, Annet Mahendru, Nicolas Cantu, Hal Cumpston and Nico Tortorella. The series debuts Oct. 4 at 10 p.m. ET on AMC.