\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve often found that the way people see me is very different from how I see myself,\u201d Nicholas Galitzine<\/a> said. \u201cPeople attribute a pristineness to me.\u201d<\/p>\n This was on a recent morning in a rococo hotel room, just west of Madison Square Park. (How rococo? Imagine Fragonard macrodosing on psilocybin.) Galitzine, who recently relocated from London to Los Angeles, was in New York for a few days to promote \u201cMary & George,\u201d<\/a> a steamy historical drama in which he stars as George Villiers, the ambitious lover of King James I. It premieres Friday on Starz. Next month, he will also appear as Hayes, a boy-band sensation in an age-gap romance, in the giddy Amazon rom-com \u201cThe Idea of You.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Boyishly handsome, with lips like plumped throw pillows and a jawline that is frankly ridiculous, Galitzine, 29, is often cast as princes (\u201cCinderella,\u201d<\/a> \u201cRed, White & Royal Blue\u201d<\/a>), straight and gay, or as modern-day prince equivalents \u2014 a pop phenom, a football star. That\u2019s how Hollywood has seen him: patrician, elegant.<\/p>\n \u201cRefined, maybe, is a word,\u201d he said. (That upmarket English accent? It helps.) But refined is not an adjective he applies. He described himself instead as \u201cchaotic,\u201d as \u201cmessy,\u201d which princes aren\u2019t always allowed to be.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a tricky thing sometimes, playing princes and people expecting that,\u201d he said. \u201cThe reality is very different.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Is it? It\u2019s a given that emerging actors tend to be on their best behavior around a reporter, but even so, Galitzine was never anything less than gracious. And his grooming was impeccable. Pristine, you might say. He wore a rugby shirt \u2014 he once planned on a career as a rugby player \u2014 with decorative cutouts and one ear held a small hoop. That earring looked like a homage to his \u201cMary & George\u201d character, but he has had the piercing since he was 12.<\/p>\n In person, Galitzine is sweet, self-effacing, reasonably confiding. He stands six feet tall, but in some ways he is still growing. As an actor, he is only now outstripping the limits of his debonair onscreen identity and looking for what\u2019s beyond them.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople really just want to see you play the same thing until you can show them something else,\u201d he said. He knows that he has a talent for romance, which explains most of his previous and current roles. \u201cIf I had to be self-aggrandizing for a moment, a thing I do well is create a sense of chemistry,\u201d he said. And it\u2019s true. He has had chemistry with every actor and actress he has played opposite. Probably he could have chemistry with the sidewalk.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He was out of the hotel now and on the perimeter of the park, gently deflecting the glances of the fans who recognized him. They may have been disappointed to hear him say that he is done playing princes. \u201cI\u2019m stepping away from romantic leads,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n For most of his life, Galitzine never thought he\u2019d be stepping toward them. The son of a Greek mother and an English father, he grew up mostly in London. During holidays on the Greek islands, his older sister used to rope him into putting on plays, but at his all-boys\u2019 school, he pursued athletics \u2014 soccer and track along with the rugby. On the field, he had a place to put what he referred to as his \u201cchaotic A.D.H.D. energy.\u201d (He was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as a child.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Those sports led to many injuries: concussions, hamstring strains, rotator cuff issues. \u201cI was just losing complete faith in the reliability of my body,\u201d he said. He was also losing faith in the macho culture of athletics.<\/p>\n \u201cI was coming into my own as a sensitive young man, and I was jarring up against these archaic ideals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Leaving sports created a vacuum that academics couldn\u2019t fill. His parents expected him to go to university, but he wasn\u2019t so sure. As he approached graduation, he had vague plans to buy a motorcycle and drive around for a while when a girl he liked suggested that he audition for a play, \u201cSpring Awakening.\u201d That play went to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where Galitzine almost immediately attracted the attention of agents. Soon after, he landed a starring role in a movie, \u201cThe Beat Beneath My Feet\u201d<\/a> (2016), a comedy about a sweet-voiced singer-songwriter who blackmails the rock god next door.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Many actors have periods of struggle or dues paying, but Galitzine\u2019s rise was relatively steady. More film roles followed, often romantic ones. He claims bemusement at having been cast so often as pretty boys.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so funny, because I\u2019ve never felt pretty in my life,\u201d he said. What\u2019s even funnier? He seemed to mean it.<\/p>\n Those roles weren\u2019t necessarily artistically fulfilling, but Galitzine had entered the profession mostly by accident and not necessarily for the art. \u201cJust because you\u2019re good at something doesn\u2019t mean you find purpose in it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Yet as he matured, he became more aware of the craft of acting and of the kinds of roles he was and wasn\u2019t being seen for. Cast for his face and biceps, he admitted to occasional professional jealousy and to feeling creatively malnourished. He did what he could with the roles available, which wasn\u2019t always a lot.<\/p>\n \u201cYou didn\u2019t sense the implicit darkness I imbued Prince Robert with?\u201d he said of his role in Amazon\u2019s 2021 version of \u201cCinderella.\u201d \u201cSo strange.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Over the last few years he has begun to feel more agency and his co-stars tend now tend to have an Oscar or two lying around. In \u201cMary & George,\u201d he stars opposite a scheming Julianne Moore. And if George is another pretty boy, he puts those pretty looks to Machiavellian use. He has always wanted to play dark, he said, but he likes other shades too. \u201cThe Idea of You,\u201d in which his melancholy pop star woos Anne Hathaway\u2019s boho single mother, is not exactly gloomy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019m not one of these people who needs to put myself through emotional turmoil in every single role that I do,\u201d he said. But there are moments of murk even in a wish-fulfillment comedy like \u201cThe Idea of You,\u201d and the quality in his character, Hayes, that fascinated him the most, he said, was \u201cthe claustrophobia of fame.\u201d<\/p>\n So far fame has yet to feel too confining. \u201cThe worst I\u2019ve had to deal with is people finding out what hotel I\u2019m staying in and showing up, people shouting my name at me, filming me without my consent,\u201d he said. Still, it isn\u2019t always comfortable. Earlier in March he included a since-deleted post on his Instagram that showed him clasping a female hand, and the internet<\/a> went a<\/a> little crazy<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe online world is a funny old place, and people are very, very curious,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n As an actor, Galitzine is just beginning to reward that curiosity. In many ways he is an entirely typical, if slightly scattered, example of a creative-class male in his late 20s. He is just getting into vinyl. (His taste? \u201cEclectic.\u201d) He has taken up woodworking and wants to try pottery. He has yet to decorate his new house, and while he has started a production company, he hasn\u2019t gotten around to naming it yet. But in his best work (\u201cBottoms,\u201d \u201cMary & George\u201d), there are intimations of depth, of daring, of an antic sense of play.<\/p>\n He\u2019d like to take on more meaningful work, he said, and to explore different genres \u2014 westerns, science fiction. He thinks \u201cMary & George\u201d is already changing how Hollywood sees him, because the roles he is being approached about these days are more layered and demanding than they were in the past.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019m being able to hang out with the filmmakers that would not have been intrigued by me before,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just given me a sense of legitimacy that I never felt I had.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s a sign of his maturity, he believes, though when he talks about it, he still sounds like a princeling.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s just so much more on offer for me now,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m a bit of a kid in the candy store.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n