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It takes all of 23 seconds for Nicholas Galitzine, the 29-year-old star of the new Starz series Mary & George, to disarm me. “I love your Wong Kar-wai hat,” he says, interrupting my interview preamble to gas up my SCRT cap. “That’s really sick.”
“I love your sweater too,” he continues, cracking a grin. “But I mean, you’re at GQ, so what should I expect, really?”
In a way, I shouldn’t be surprised. This is, after all, a guy who is professionally charming—a literal Prince Charming in Amazon Prime’s Cinderella, the titular Handsome Devil in the 2017 coming-of-age soccer film. Last year, Galitzine broke through in the streaming sensation Red, White & Royal Blue, playing a blushing gay prince in love with the bisexual son of the American president. That movie—which went viral for a notably instructional sex scene between Galitzine and co-star Taylor Zakhar Perez—established him as both an Internet Boyfriend and a leading man in the making, capable of both holding the screen as an actor and making fancams do numbers.
Mary & George is inspired by the unbelievable true story of Mary Villiers, who moulded her beautiful and charismatic son, George, to seduce King James VI of Scotland and I of England and become his all-powerful lover. Through outrageous scheming, the pair rose from humble beginnings to become the richest, most titled and influential players the English court had ever seen, and the King’s most trusted advisors. And with England’s place on the world stage under threat from a Spanish invasion and rioters taking to the streets to denounce the King, the stakes could not have been higher.Sky UK
This year sees Galitzine deliver on that potential in two projects that pair him with Oscar-winning costars—the sexy historical series Mary & George, with Julianne Moore, and the rom-com The Idea of You, with Anne Hathaway. In both parts, we see Galitzine pushing beyond his heartthrob persona and steering his career in a darker, more exciting direction.
Before we get to those projects though, Galitzine, prodded by my cap, talks to me about some of his favorite films. “I don’t want to be basic and say [my favorite Wong Kar-wai film is] In The Mood For Love but I mean, it’s just genius,” he tells me, about the filmmaker’s 2000 film, often considered one of the greatest of all time. “I’d say it’s one of the most formative movies in terms of my own general movie tastes. Chungking Express is probably my second favorite movie.”
The actor speaks with studious awe about the medium he works in; he seems to have taken it upon himself to curate his own film-studies curriculum. “I went from Danish [cinema] and I’m into Korean [cinema] now,” he tells me. “Have you seen the movie Burning?” he asks, referring to the Lee Chang-dong thriller. When I tell him that I’m a big fan, Galitzine visibly lights up, rhapsodically talking up the film’s lead actors. “Steven Yeun is incredible!” he says. “Yoo Ah-in is ridiculously talented.”
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