This insanely gorgeous gay actor is about to be everywhere in 2023 – Queerty

December 19, 2022 News Editor

Make it a 2023 resolution to follow Isaac Cole Powell because this talented actor is red hot, and his career’s only going to get hot-hot-hotter in the next year.

With a background on Broadway and eye-catching roles in projects like the most recent (and very gay) season of American Horror Story, Powell’s name is popping up all over the place, so we here at Queerty wanted to do our public duty to alert you to an exciting queer star on the rise. Who, yes, also happens to be devastatingly beautiful.

The 27-year old actor was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, and basically grew up in the performing arts. His father, Will Powell, is a three-time world CrossFit champion (so those abs are genetic!).

After graduating from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in 2017, he made his Broadway debut in the revival of Once On This Island in a performance that was met with critical acclaim. He followed that up with a splashy lead role in Ivo van Hove’s West Side Story, which ran at the historic Broadway Theatre from 2019 to 2020 (closing, as much of the world did, due to the pandemic).

In case you need any further proof that this guy’s got pipes and stage presence, may we present:

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Is it too late to find Powell a role in the upcoming Wicked movies?

His screen roles include the Dear Evan Hansen movie and Amazon’s Modern Love series, as well as the aforementioned American Horror Story—showing up in the back-half of 2021’s Double Feature season (playing a student who has a very “labor-ious” alien encounter), and this year’s thought-provoking NYC season (as an artist who was giving us major Robert Mapplethorpe vibes).

As for Powell’s 2023… Where do we begin? First, he’ll appear in the quirky true-crime comedy Susie Searches, which premiered last fall at the Toronto International Film Festival, and is set to release nationwide on January 14 (more details to come). Then, just a few short days later, he’ll be headed to the Sundance Film Festival with the highly anticipated thriller, Cat Person, which is based on an infamous New Yorker short story about a college student and her fling with an older man.

Beyond that, you can also keep an eye out for Powell in the drama Our Son, which stars Luke Evans and Billy Porter as a divorcing couple fighting over custody of their son, as well as Past Lives, the story of a Korean-American immigrant confronting her past, from first-time filmmaker Celine Song.

And it was just announced that he’ll be among the ensemble of a new HBO comedy from Sam Mendes (1917, Skyfall) and Veep co-creator Armando Iannucci called The Franchise, about a “dysfunctional crew” struggling to produce a massive superhero blockbuster.

2023 is really going to be Isaac Cole Powell’s year, and we can’t wait!

But that’s enough talk. We know a lot of you out there are visual learners, so we’ll just share some of our favorite photos of the actor below: