Noah Centineo can currently be seen as Anthony in the timely comedy drama Our Hero, Balthazar, which he also executive produced. He first came to prominence for his work in the ABC Family series The Fosters, and found widespread fame with the wildly popular To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy, playing love interest Peter Kavinsky, a role that won him an MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance. Recently, Centineo starred in the Netflix series The Recruit, about the world of international espionage, and in Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland’s feature Warfare, alongside D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai, Charles Melton, Joseph Quinn, Kit Connor and Will Poulter. He will next be seen in the forthcoming drama Union Country and the thriller Iconoclast.(Photo courtesy Ricardo Hubbs/Netflix.)
Three Great Things is Talkhouse’s series in which artists tell us about three things they absolutely love. To mark the current theatrical release of the timely comedy-drama Our Hero, Balthazar, starring Jaeden Martell, Asa Butterfield, Jennifer Ehle, Noah Centineo, Becky Ann Baker and Avan Jogia, Centineo – who has moved from Netflix heartthrob to actor in acclaimed indie fare like Warfare, Our Hero, Balthazar and the forthcoming Union County – shared some of his favorite things in life. — N.D.
Reading
I love reading a lot. Compared with my classmates, I learned pretty late, when I was about to turn seven. I think my teachers realized I was pretty good at finding a way to make them think I could read, but when they finally realized I didn’t know how to, they told my parents, “Your son needs to learn to read, or else we have to hold him back.” At that time, my dad owned a coffee shop in Fort Lauderdale and worked crazy hours, but when he found out I was struggling to read, he took Sundays off and took me to Barnes & Noble instead. From the moment they opened until they closed, he just sat there with me. At first, he would just read kids’ books to me, but soon enough, I started reading with him. And then I started reading on my own. I suddenly realized how much I had been missing! Reading became a way to escape; I was going off into these worlds built by other people for my imagination and it felt so personal. It was an adventure every time I found a book, so I started reading and reading, and didn’t stop for many years.
Reading has always been a very relaxing activity for me. It helps me wind down at the end of my days when I’m working on project, and it’s always been there for me. If I’m going through something difficult in my personal life, I’ve been blessed to find books that help me articulate the emotions or experiences I’m having.
I think I’m a pretty picky reader, regardless of whether it’s a book or a script. But what I look for in a script is similar to what I look for in a book: something fresh, exciting, a little dangerous. A voice that I’ll enjoy being brainwashed by, for however many hours it’s in my head. With Our Hero, Balthazar, it was very clear within the first five or 10 pages that it was something very fresh, and I was sold. I remember I read it sitting next to my producing partner; he was about 10 feet away from me and maybe eight pages or so in front of me, because he started five minutes before me. At certain moments, he would gasp … and then about five minutes later, I would gasp. Then he’d say, “Wasn’t that crazy?!” and I’d say, “Yeah, what the fuck!”
Sharing a Moment of Quiet with Someone
I really enjoy a moment when you silently experience something together with someone you feel super safe with. A great example of one of those moments is when my dad and I went to Disney World, and it was just me and him. I was maybe five years old, and I cherish this memory so much. We got there right as it opened, and he maybe even convinced them to let us in slightly early. (My dad was really good at convincing people; I began to go to the gym when I was nine years old, because he would convince people to let me work out with him.) At Disney World, we sat together and had tea and we watched the monkeys at the Animal Kingdom just swing around and play. It was cold and cloudy, and we were silent for a long time as we watched the monkeys. I think it’s rare when you can occupy the same space with someone you love, trust and feel safe around, so much so that you don’t need to say anything and can just be with them.
I love those moments and I’ve been fortunate to find them throughout my life, and to find people to share them with. It’s very singular, and how cool is it when you can sit next to someone and just be? It’s sometimes hard enough to do that by yourself, to be willing to just sit and not look at your phone, to not work, read something or put on a movie on in the background, and to just sit there in thought.
Meeting Experts
I love meeting people who are experts in their field, or just super passionate about a subject and know a lot about it. It could be virology, bird watching, acting, construction – anything! It could be somebody who runs a water filtration company or somebody creating a bioplastic material that is going to replace plastic one day. For me, meeting those people is like getting a free seminar – I will sit there and think, Great, you’re definitely someone I should be interviewing and asking questions of! And I love doing that, because then I can just pepper the person with questions and learn so much about something I had no idea about before from somebody who can actually teach it to me.
If I’m at a party or a dinner and I’m sitting next to this kind of person, I’ll lock in and everything else disappears. I can’t even tell you how many times that’s happened in my life – it happened to me two weeks ago! I’ll sit and talk for two-and-a-half hours and just learn from the person. It’s so rare to meet somebody who is incredibly knowledgeable about a particular subject, that it’s like drinking water for the first time after being thirsty for days. It’s something very refreshing that fills me up and quenches my thirst for excitement and life and knowledge. Those people’s knowledge and passion is magnetic; I’m just very drawn to it.
Featured image shows Noah Centineo and Jaeden Martell in Our Hero, Balthazar.
