Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for Netflix(NEW YORK) — If you haven’t yet heard the name Wolfgang Novogratz — and what a name it is — you soon will. The 23-year-old actor is fast becoming Netflix’s go-to teen movie guy, appearing in no less than four of them: Sierra Burgess Is a Loser, The Last Summer, The Half of It, and Feel the Beat.
Now, he’s starring in Yes, God, Yes opposite Stranger Things actress Natalia Dyer. Dyer plays Alice, a teen at a Catholic high school in the early 2000s, grappling with her burgeoning sexuality. Novogratz plays Chris, a senior retreat leader who catches Alice’s eye.
“He immediately made me think of Tim Tebow,” Novogratz tells ABC Audio of his character, referring to the former NFL quarterback turned New York Mets baseball player.
“And then once I got the role, I spent actually a lot of time kind of using Tim Tebow as an inspiration,” he adds. “So I watched a lot of interviews with him and kind of tried to pick up on different nuances and his mannerisms. And there’s a lot of very admirable qualities about Tebow that I wanted to infuse into Chris.”
Novogratz also embraced the nostalgic early 2000s setting, even though he was just a young kid during the peak days of AOL Instant Messenger and Nokia phones.
“I was so excited when I saw the finished film for the first time and there was like Mandy Moore’s ‘Candy’ and these great songs from that time,” he says. “And for me, I love all kinds of music, but I definitely have a soft spot for the boy bands and pop music of the late 90s, early 2000s.”
Yes, God, Yes opens in virtual cinemas and drive-in theaters today, and hits VOD and digital July 28. (VIDEO CONTAINS SUGGESTIVE CONTENT)
By Andrea Tuccillo
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