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In this week’s issue of PEOPLE, the actor, 27, opens up about his career-changing role as Justin Suarez, the fashion-obsessed nephew of America Ferrera’s title character in the ABC comedyUgly Betty. Also, Indelicato shares why he decided to take a break from Hollywood and how he realized that actingactuallywas his calling.
“At the time, I don’t think that I understood exactly what Justin would mean to so many people and the kind of legacy of the show in opening so many doors for subsequent projects and representation,” he says of the character, who, like him, is gay.
When the series wrapped after four seasons in 2010, the Philadelphia native went on to study international relations at New York University.
“I wanted to go and live as normal a life as I possibly could,” he says. “I was challenged in a way that I’d never been challenged before and that just makes you a stronger person. I had never really been called out for being wrong about something before in my life.”
Indelicato adds, “I think that sitting around a seminar table with kids that are way smarter than you — and that you’re really at the bottom of the totem pole in that way, being challenged on your opinion, and thusly having to have an opinion — was really important for me.”
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Indelicato intended to go to law school and work for the United Nations, but in the end, he decided to return to Hollywood.
“I just felt this overwhelming sense of ‘This is what I’m supposed do,’ " says the star, who recently appeared alongside Jean Smart in season 1 of the Emmy-winning HBO series Hacks.“This is my path. I think that I was so ready to give it all up just because it felt like I didn’t really have a choice in the matter when I was a kid. But then at the end, I’m so grateful for it though, because I came around to realize that this is what I’m supposed to do.”
Next, he will star as Jorge Diaz Jr. inWith Love,an original romantic-comedy series on Amazon Prime Video premiering on Dec. 17.
Indelicato hopes to continue to be a force for LGBTQ+ representation in entertainment. “I want to accomplish playing as many gay men as I possibly can, in as many nuanced ways as I can,” he says.
source: people.com
