Nicholas Galitzine Is Playing Supermodel Hoyt Richards For Gus Van Sant, And The Timing Is Suspiciously Good
Nicholas Galitzine has found his next role. The English actor will play Hoyt Richards, the man widely called the world’s first male supermodel, in a new biopic. Deadline reports that Gus Van Sant is in talks to direct.
The timing is almost too neat. We were only just talking about Galitzine, who is currently flexing as He-Man in Masters of the Universe. Then, on 1 June, HBO dropped Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult, a three-part documentary about the exact chapter this film will cover.
A week later, his casting leaks. Coincidence, or a publicist earning their keep? Either way, it worked.
Who is Hoyt Richards?
Richards, now 64, ruled fashion in the late 1980s with campaigns for Versace, Valentino, Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan. He also lived a double life. For more than a decade he was secretly bound to Eternal Values, a doomsday cult run by Frederick von Mierers, who preyed on young male models and their bank balances. Richards reportedly handed over millions before he got out in 1999.
The role that, for once, is not gay
Here’s the fun part. Galitzine built his name on queer parts. He was the lovesick prince in Red, White and Royal Blue and the scheming, bisexual George Villiers in Mary and George. He has shown range too, playing a dim straight jock in Bottoms. Even his He-Man is a gay icon four decades deep.
Richards, though, is straight, so this one is a swerve. The queer fingerprints just sit elsewhere. Van Sant is one of cinema’s great gay storytellers, behind My Own Private Idaho and the Harvey Milk biopic Milk, and the cult at the centre of the story targeted beautiful young men.
No plot details are locked, and the film is expected to shoot next year. Galitzine keeps proving he is the leading man gay audiences cannot stop watching, gay role or not.
