Nicholas Duvernay Doesn’t Want You To Give Up On Love

Nicholas Duvernay was enjoying summer in Montreal last year, filming the upcoming rom-com The Love Hypothesis opposite Lili Reinhart, when he got a call that he’d landed one of the leading roles in Mindy Kaling’s new TV comedy, Not Suitable for Work. As kismet would have it, his new co-star, Jack Martin, happened to be visiting Reinhart, his girlfriend, on set.

“I was like, ‘Bro, it’s official — I’m gonna be Kel!’” Duvernay tells me over Zoom from his apartment in Los Angeles. “It was all perfect timing — him coming to set was like a good omen.”

Along with Martin, Duvernay, 26, stars with Ella Hunt, Avantika, and Will Angus in Hulu’s ensemble comedy about fresh-out-of-college 20-somethings who live across the hall from each other in New York City’s Murray Hill neighborhood. It may sound like a Gen-Z version of Friends, but the show is decidedly more career-focused than the classic NBC sitcom. In particular, Duvernay’s character, Kel, is an aspiring actor who drops out of medical school after realizing that he doesn’t feel passionate about being a doctor. (Fainting at the sight of a cadaver can do that.) Kel takes a temp job as a substitute teacher at an all-girls private school to make ends meet while he attends auditions.

Duvernay can relate. He moved from Atlanta to Los Angeles at 19 to pursue acting and, like many actors, did about every odd job imaginable — from Uber Eats, Postmates, and DoorDash driver to dishwasher, server, and barback — to get by. “You just keep moving around to find ways to make more money, and that’s a lot of what the show is about: work-life balance,” he says. “If I make more money, I’ll have more free time because I’ll have to work fewer days, and then I can go to these acting classes or I can try and make these auditions.”

A key difference between him and his Not Suitable for Work character, however, is that while Kel must navigate his parents’ disapproval of his chosen profession, Duvernay’s family is the reason he’s acting today. When he was about 9 years old, he acted out different scenarios and cried on cue to them. They immediately clocked that their son had a gift and encouraged him to study acting and perform in showcases. For years, Duvernay went along with it, wanting to make his mom and dad happy, until he had his own epiphany doing theater his senior year of high school.

“Being on the stage is such an unbelievable feeling, because it’s live — it’s like electricity coursing through everyone’s veins at the same time, and you’re moving as one, and you hear the crowd react,” he says. “That’s really when I felt the fullness of what it could be for me — like, wow, my parents kind of cooked. They knew I was supposed to do this.”

In his seven years in LA, Duvernay has put together an impressive resume. He landed a recurring role in Peacock’s Bel-Air and had a supporting part in Netflix’s popular romantic drama Purple Hearts. But his breakout moment came in 2025 when he portrayed Zion, the son of Natasha Rothwell’s Belinda, in The White Lotus Season 3. “The White Lotus, it’s huge. It felt like that when I was auditioning for it, it felt like that when I was filming, it felt like that when it was coming out, and it still feels like that for me,” he says.

He still keeps in touch with the cast — he even has a workout-theme group chat going with co-stars Patrick Schwarzenegger and Arnas Fedaravičius — and says he’d “absolutely” do another season if Mike White came calling (“100 times, yes. I would drop everything I’m doing,” he says). In addition to the friends and the career boost in Hollywood, the show offered plenty of self-discovery.

“Everyone’s telling you [that] you’re attached to a rocket — just buckle up and get ready — and you then have this expectation the whole time you’re filming it, like, ‘Who am I? I need to figure out who I am right now, because I don’t want to get out there into the world and do myself a disservice because now I’m playing someone else,’” he says. “That was my big thing. I really wanted to find out who I was, but it’s funny because… I don’t think we ever truly know.”

It’s why Duvernay approaches his career as “an open book,” ready to learn and evolve with each new opportunity that comes his way — whether that’s as Jeremy in The Love Hypothesis, his role in an upcoming “time loop action shark movie,” or in a potential second season of Not Suitable for Work.

“The more open we are to the possibilities, the more that is to come to us,” he says, leaning back, thinking for a moment. “I just want to be happy, I want to be fulfilled, and I want to pour into my friends, my family, and my loved ones.”

Ahead, Duvernay opens up about playing the “hot guy,” his love for rom-coms, and why Not Suitable for Work is an ideal show for viewers right now.

You were just telling me how you rewatched the Not Suitable for Work premiere last night. A lot of actors are hesitant to watch their work.

I wasn’t going to watch because I’d already seen them and don’t really like to watch myself, but I had my girlfriend over, and she wanted to watch them again. I really like watching everyone else but me, but I did end up enjoying it.

It’s fun seeing how close the guy friend group is. There’s an intimacy to them when they’re talking about breakups and how they’re really feeling about their jobs. How did you guys work together to create the bond that you bring on screen?

I think all of us are very in touch with our emotions, and it’s really helpful that the script is setting the table for us to do something we already have the capability to do. Even outside of work, we have these conversations, and we’re very open and honest with each other. And when the guys come together on screen, they’re very open and honest and vulnerable with each other. That’s something that’s not shown enough on TV, especially as a younger group of guys.

It feels refreshing, especially when you read the discourse about young men struggling with loneliness.

In this day and age, there’s a lot we have to navigate. There are a lot of voices. Social media plays a big part in that. But also, everybody wants to define something for someone — men want to tell women how to be women, women want to tell men how to be men, and men want to tell men how to be men. It’s like everyone has this opinion about how you should be, if you’re not man enough, if you’re not woman enough. But I think that’s why shows like this are so important, so we can slowly start to change that dynamic and how people view things. Hopefully, the guys watch this and go, “Wow, maybe I can open up to my homeboys, maybe I can tell my friends how I’m feeling, and maybe I’ll feel less alone in that.”

One of the things I love about Mindy Kaling’s shows is that she highlights how goofy men can be, in a good way. I found it hilarious that Kel was casually stealing Abby’s packages and using her rhinestone flip-flops.

Mindy does that so well. It’s like I needed something to wear around the house, and these were available, which is such a guy thing to do. I’ve definitely worn my girl’s slippers — not that they fit, just because they were there and I needed something. Everyone wants to be Mr. Cool these days. Everybody wants to be nonchalant, and I love showing people’s goofy personalities. You don’t have to take everything so seriously. You could be a dude and wear pink rhinestone slippers, and it does not define your masculinity.

Kel is considered the “hot” one in the friend group. What is it like playing someone who’s considered the most attractive?

It’s definitely weird because you ask yourself, “Do I play into this? Do I distance myself from it?” I don’t know how to accept compliments — like what do you say, outside of thank you? So I just shy away from them awkwardly. Because you never want to be the handsome guy who knows he’s handsome, like the hot person who thinks everybody wants to bang them. It’s a fine line.

I had this conversation a couple of nights ago. I don’t know how to feel about it, outside of just playing Kel as a character who probably thinks he’s handsome but doesn’t hold too much weight on it.

Am I seeing things, or has the show been planting romantic seeds between Kel and Avantika’s character, Abby?

Definitely. One of the big parts of Kel’s storyline is working up the courage to actually talk to Abby and then building up to this point where he feels comfortable. It’s that kind of meet-cute turns into something more, possibly. Avantika is a comedic genius and the sweetest person you’ll ever meet. I hope to see more of Kel and Abby.

You’re also in The Love Hypothesis, out soon. What’s your relationship with the romance genre?

I love rom-coms — How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Notting Hill, When Harry Met Sally. I think everybody wants to be in love, and those movies give us a glimpse into it. It connects people to what’s possible. A lot of people, especially in our generation, have given up on love or aren’t trying for the foreseeable future, but it’s out there, and it’s beautiful, and a romance movie will remind you that love is in the air and that you shouldn’t give up on it.

Do you like playing a romantic lead?

I do. I feel like I’m learning how to do it. Let me be honest with you, it kind of feels like you’re fishing for a compliment. When you’re fishing for a compliment, you feel like a very performative male. Some characters are written like that — like he’s the perfect guy, reading in the park with wired headphones and eating a salad with fresh sourdough that he made himself. Sometimes the storylines air you up a bit, so it’s weird to navigate that and ground it so you’re still likable, still normal, but still someone to gawk over.

That was one of the things I loved about playing Jeremy in The Love Hypothesis. Jeremy is a very normal guy. Outside of his acts of service, his actions make you go, “Well, maybe that guy would be a good partner outside of something merely out of attraction.”

I’m a big fan of the book, so I’m kind of jealous that you already saw the movie.

How do you feel about me not being a ginger?

I’ve never been one of those people who got hung up on characters’ physical descriptions. Whenever people are arguing over hair color, eye color, I’m just like, who cares?

It’s crazy. You will get destroyed in the comments.

Did you see a lot of those comments on your own social media?

Yeah, the book is massive, so it’s worldwide. I want to say 95% of the comments I got were people saying Jeremy is ginger in Spanish, German, French, English — all different languages. Everyone is outraged about Jeremy not being a ginger. But to everyone out there, I hope you enjoy my version of Jeremy.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.