After two decades in the entertainment industry, Avan Jogia has definitely learned a thing or two.
He started his Hollywood career early on Nickelodeon Victorious And later teen drama CrookedIt was like a whirlwind coming out of the “kids TV machine,” as the 34-year-old actor describes it. Although it took some time, Jogia eventually realized that he had complete control to “navigate where I want this ship to go,” choosing roles and directing films that truly resonated.
“[After] “After 20 years of making stuff, I’ve probably reached my limits,” he says. Hollywood Reporter. “It takes a long time, not just the elapsed time, but within yourself to say, ‘Maybe I deserve to decide how and what I want to make.’ And so I got to that part of the play.
Goggia says he is now diving into projects that focus on world-building and allow characters to exist outside of “a very narrow window of human expression.” This is exactly why Prime Video is offering the psychological romantic thriller 56 days It caught his attention and saw him star opposite Dove Cameron earlier this year. That’s why he jumped at the opportunity to work with Ken Parsons on his film Back rooms The film was released on Friday.
Below, Jogia talks about moving from children’s television to more mature roles and directing, and what it was like working on it Back roomssuccess 56 daysHe is collaborating with his fiancée Halsey in their new movie and more.
Let’s go back to the beginning, what initially motivated you to pursue a career in entertainment?
I really liked the idea of being able to be seen as a professional and be taken seriously and also be able to play professionally, which is what I do for a living. And so I started talking about it when I was six years old. Once I figured out what it was, my parents abstained from it as much as they could and I teased them until I was 12 and then they kind of said, “Okay, let’s go to this acting class and kind of satisfy this thing.” Because of that I got a lot of business. …And then I started taking more narrative pieces in Vancouver, Canada.
Then I dropped out of high school, which I wouldn’t recommend to anyone. And I rarely tell this story because of what I ended up doing, which is children’s television. You end up becoming an actual ambassador and co-parent for everyone in an entire generation or two. And I left school and went to California and lived in a trailer behind someone’s house for $300 in the valley. Then I called the offer Victoriouswhich is this kind of cultural phenomenon.
As kids we were a little more impulsive and so we got picked up and put into this kids’ TV machine, and once it spits you out, like it did me, it spit me out in my late teens, early twenties. I was lucky enough to move to the second intermediate step on the ladder, which was teen television. I was on an ABC Family (now Freeform) show called Crookedwhich is a beloved cult show for a lot of people because at the time it was one of those shows that was in that package pretty little liars And all the others.
After you started acting, when did you know you wanted to transition into directing?
After this offer[[Crooked]Done, it was kind of my choice to sail where I wanted this ship to go. And even though this was the year that I did my Sundance films and came out with the miniseries that I did with Sir Ben Kingsley, BerriesIt was like, well, this is kind of close to why I came to the party in the first place. I love acting and I will continue to act all my life. Then you start with one thing and realize the journey of life, and if you listen carefully and don’t just accept the first truth you learn, you can change your life the way you want.
So I directed the film I wrote. I wrote the movie when I was 23, out of frustration because I didn’t really like the parts that were available, so I wrote these parts for other people, the kind of parts I wanted to do and grew up wanting to be in. I love movies that are lively and energetic where the characters get a real chance to be characters, to be extreme, to not exist in the very narrow window of human expression.
Back rooms It is your latest project, and since the audience does not technically see you in front of the camera in the film, how did this role come about?
Ken [Parsons, director] Very smart. I’ve loved him since he was 16 making his own videos, and he got this opportunity and I was happy to get involved in anything to support his vision of what this thing could be. I love world building. This is the kind of movie I wanted to be able to be in when I got out of the kids TV machine and into my twenties.
Ken and I, I don’t know what it is. We continued talking. We talked a lot more than I think a part like this would normally deserve, because he’s a world builder and I love that stuff. Me too. There is no part of this film, when seen in action, that is not important to him. He has the knowledge and the legend and he has the depth in every aspect of it, and that’s how you make things that I love. We had a lot of conversations and I think there were a bunch of different versions of how to do it, but he was like, “You’re in it. I don’t know in what capacity.” This was because I said to my agents and my manager: “No matter how good I am, I am a player. I want to play football.”
It was recently announced that you will be directing and co-writing the film substitute With your fiancée, Halsey. How did the idea come about and how excited are you to collaborate together?
One of the joys of my life is being able to live and collaborate with someone who I believe is extremely talented in whatever medium she explores. We work well together. We have a similar writing sensibility, which made the writing process very easy, and I’m excited to watch. Again, I want to watch the actors having fun exploring something bigger than themselves or larger than everyday, mundane, conventional life. I want the actors to come in and rock a person and a character. And to watch her be able to do that, I mean I wrote it with the awareness that in her 20s, she was busy achieving great success in a very difficult field. So she didn’t have time to do films like this. I thought to myself, “You should have one of these, so let me write it down.”
It’s a very sweet, romantic gesture to be like, “Let me write you a movie.”
Yes, this should have been something that happened, but it didn’t because you took this different dimensional jump, but there’s a dimension where you could have done this and done this and done that. And part of loving someone is also being able to see all the different versions of them that could have been or still are.
You’ve mentioned that you were avoiding lead romantic roles at one point in your career, but then you took on lead roles 56 dayswhich was a huge hit on Prime Video. What made you join this project, and what is your reaction to how well this project resonates with fans?
It’s a romantic premise, but there’s so much more to it. There is meat on the bones. There’s something for me to do. There’s such a constant tension there that I can do it really sweet, or I can do it with the weight of all the internal things that Oliver’s going through. Also, not for nothing, it was quite a physical part because I had my shirt off all the time (He laughs), which, he let in a huge sigh about how much work it was. But this was something that had to be done. I’ve done some of those things, but I’ve never really done anything like this.
And then, of course, it’s the number one show situation, which is amazing and I’m so humbled by it, and people have been really nice and kind about it. I don’t think anyone expected the show to be such a cultural moment. I think you’d have to be absolutely crazy as a person to be like, “Oh yeah, No. 1.” But it’s always a beautiful thing. It ended up being a lineage choice It’s important to me because once you make a show like that, what happens next is you get a million more opportunities to do this kind of thing, and people point out that you should stay on that train even if it takes you away from what you want to do. Because I was defiant with the opposition, I said to myself: “Let me direct a film.” (He laughs.)
Fans have also been admiring you for portraying Xaden in Fourth wings Adaptation Prime Video. I know your focus is on directing at the moment, but would you be open to taking on this role if the opportunity arose?
Everything has something interesting, and not for nothing. I like to do fantasy. When you’re a little kid and you grow up and you want to be an actor, you have a list in your mind of things you want to do. I saw Lord of the Rings And he was like, “I’d love to be able to be in fiction one day.” And I’ve grown up. I’ve played every large-scale fantasy video game available to play. I have spent tens of thousands of hours of my life living in a fantasy world. I would love to be able to be involved in a movie or TV show that has fantasy elements. I love being a pirate. That’s what I’m saying when I say acting. What I did was make myself happy as a child by playing in worlds that had always excited me since I was a child. So the concept of dragons and a fantasy world like that, it seems cool.
If you had to describe what makes Avan Jogia, Avan Jogia, what would you say?
I’m emotional. I’m curious. I love creative collaboration. In a world where there’s so little community, the set, the pirate ship, we all go sailing and find whatever it is that’s out there on the open ocean, that community of people that I work with every day, that’s what I’m always looking for. This creative community of ideas where we all roll up our sleeves and all believe in something and we all do it together is much more important than the end result. The result is a byproduct of time spent with the community. …I’m a person who’s always making for the sake of making, and then sometimes I lose my way. But I think [after] 20 years of making stuff, I’ve probably reached my limits. Like I said earlier in the conversation, it takes a long time, not just the time spent, but within yourself to be like, “Maybe I deserve to decide how I want to make and what I want to make.” And so I got to this part of the play.
