Exclusive Preview: Owen Thiele is our Latest Non-Threatening Boys* Cover Star
Words: Lauren O’Neill | Photographer: Richie Shazam | Stylist: Jared Ellner | Hair: Danny Espinal | Grooming: Alexa Hernandez | Videographer: Irem Acar | Creative Producer: Austin DeWitt | Photo Assistants: Elisabet Gudmundsdottir, Alicia Zhu | Set Design: Michael Newton | Assistant Set Design: April Seo
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When Owen Thiele was a kid, any room with any surface that could possibly be turned into a stage absolutely hated to see him coming.
“I was the kid that was dancing on tables, and everyone was begging me to get down,” he explains now, quite matter-of-factly. “I would go to restaurants and do full out dance routines to Britney Spears. The waiter’s spilling drinks, asking me to sit down. My mom is filming behind, telling me to keep going; she’s like, ‘You didn't hit that last spin.’”
He readjusts the iPhone in his hand as I laugh out loud, my view of our FaceTime momentarily blurred (I’m in London; he’s infinitely more glamorous in the back of a towncar traversing New York, between promo engagements for the new series of FX’s Adults, in which he stars). “It never stopped for me, performing, and I always knew I wanted to do it,” he continues. This sincerity, however, in a classic moment of Thiele-speak - familiar to listeners of his podcast In Your Dreams and fans of his acting - is quickly undercut with a joke: “It was either gonna be like, I would be a sociopath or a narcissist, so I picked narcissist, which means performer.”
