Felix Mallard remembers the exact moment he discovered the enduring emotional power of performance. The Australian actor began his career in his early teens, as a model. With no prior experience, he booked his first acting gig on the long-running Aussie soap Neighbours, a launchpad for many other successful actors, including Russell Crowe and Margot Robbie. Mallard played the14-year-old Ben Kirk, whose father died when Ben was a toddler. Now 24, the actor viscerally remembers struggling with his debut role at the time; he didn’t understand how his character could be so sad about something that had happened so long ago. The show’s director gave him a bit of advice that stuck: grief can be experienced at any time—it was Mallard’s job to communicate that.
Ever since, the actor has gravitated toward stories about mental health, and to layered characters who will make people feel seen. On Ginny & Georgia—one of Netflix’s most popular series to date—he plays the “very Jordan Catalano” bad boy Marcus. The actor was drawn to the series’ unique tone and overall message. “Life is absurd, and that’s what I really love about Ginny & Georgia,” he explains. “It can be quirky. It can be strange. It can be funny. It can be sad.” Mallard connects deeply with Marcus because of their shared experiences: As young men, they’re pressured not to be vulnerable, not to be emotional. “There’s a real sense of showing things aren’t necessarily as they seem on the surface,” says the actor, who, in addition to starring in the second season of the show, will play Davis Pickett—a well-heeled, brooding youth plagued by family tragedy—in director Hannah Marks’s adaptation of John Green’s Turtles All the Way Down, which co-stars Isabela Merced and Succession’s J. Smith-Cameron.
Makeup by Sara Tagaloa
Hair by Tiago Goya
Nails By Blue Arios
Photography Assistance by Maya Guice
Fashion Assistance by Tallula Bell Madden, Molly Novack, and Tom Grimsdell
Makeup Assistance by Hannah Jaclyn
Hair Assistance by Sadaf Azimi
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