Younger's Nico Tortorella Gets Personal About Gender Fluidity

What's going on, guys? Hanging with me right now, I have Nico Tortorella.

Hi.

Nico, Nico, Nico. Nico, Nico, Nico. Did you catch that? See what I did there?

I appreciate it.

Yes. Let's just start out really strong. Like please explain to the Young Hollywood fans what that is. What Nico, Nico, Nico is?

Yeah. Wow. We're starting deep right now. How long do we have?

A long time. We have all day. You're welcome anytime.

Okay, cool. I have no idea what Nico, Nico, Nico is. Um, it is something that came to fruition about like three and a half years ago. Uh, I got sober from alcohol and then I was like trying to convince myself I was still crazy. So I was working on all of these projects and one of them was this like narrative of sorts, mock you, docu style. And I called it Nico, Nico, Nico and it just kind of stuck. It it became like my own holy Trinity of sorts.

I love that. Well, first and foremost, let's congratulate you on Younger.

Oh, thanks.

Love the show, obsessed. And I honestly think your character Josh is one of my favorites. And here's why. You think he is one of your favorites. I think. I think. And I feel because I think Josh he falls in love and he trusts so easily. Do you feel like that's fair for me to say?

He falls in love with other people very easily. But has Josh yet to fall in love with himself as easily as he could or should? That is the question. I think that Josh's self love uh needs to be focused on a little bit more than what it has been. Grant it. Josh doesn't even have a last name. This is a 22-minute show.

Right, right.

With eight series regulars, you know, so we don't have as much time as I think I would like to see invested in in Josh's character and and his backstory and like what he's really going through personally outside of the the show and the other characters. But that's television, y'all.

That's right. Well, I was going to ask, I feel like he's also so silly and just like so loving, so like I don't know anything about that. What? Come on. I was going to say, I feel like you're pretty similar to Josh.

Yes, that is, yeah, of course, you know, but I think that's like with any television, if you're on a show for long enough, like past two seasons, the writers will start writing for the actors. And uh that has absolutely happened with Josh and I.

I love it. Yeah. In a recent episode, which I believe you said was your favorite, it touches on pansexuality, gender fluidity. Amazing. Yeah. I loved the way that the show set it up because some of the characters didn't really understand what those terms meant, so they literally explained it. Josh's character, right? Which is so funny. I love it.

The life imitating art because those, you know, this community and specifically like gender identity these days are such a huge part of my own life. That is like what's so beautiful about not only my fluidity, but about fluidity of of of humankind, right? It's the ability to shapeshift and to to be able to see me play that character was like, oh, wow, you know, I um I'm a I'm more than one thing. And I think we all are multidimensional, dynamic beings. And queerness is a way to articulate that physically and emotionally and spiritually.

I agree 100%. Also, I don't know if you noticed if this was on purpose or not, but in that same episode, the camera kind of pans on Josh and all of it is you. It's just bam right there in the middle. Yeah. Is it Did you guys do that on purpose?

Well, I I never really I never really asked. I never like Okay. I just show up with new tattoos every season. And I play a tattoo artist on the show, so it's like totally fine, right? But there have been some like tattoos that I've gotten that cover up some of Josh's tattoos, like the dragon tattoo that Josh got for Liza. I is it I don't have a spot on it from my arm. So I never said anything to like the producers or anything, or Darren, or whatever. But the makeup artist and I just like, well, we're just going to go for it. And then like three episodes later, one of the writers like, um, excuse me, where is the dragon tattoo? I was like, It's gone.

That was a good accent.

Thanks. I appreciate it. I appreciate it.

I love that. Oh, that was my segue. To this. Your latest. Look at this book. All of it is you. Your poetry book. It's so beautiful. I actually got to read it. Oh nice. And I'm just I'm shook. It took you 45 days to create this? What do those days look like? Like please tell me.

I set up a timeline, 45 days. There's like 250 poems. It's roughly like five to seven pieces a day with like some breaks, right? I had never had to like compile a body of creative work quite like this before. Uh and it was transformational. More than anything, this book is about celebrating oneness. This divine frequency of love that unites us all. This book is about collapsing of binaries and divisions and recognizing the simultaneity of absolutely everyone and everything.

You guys, get his book. Available anywhere books are available.

Yes.