Three days after Noah Centineo appeared on the Today Show to jokingly describe his role on Netflix’s new spy series The Recruit as “the anti-Tom Cruise,” none other than Tom Cruise illustrated his point. How? By posting a video of himself jumping out of a plane on the set of the next Mission: Impossible while nonchalantly thanking fans for going to the movies. It’s classic Cruise, known for playing badass spies who perform daredevil feats with a blinding smile and nary a bead of sweat. (Unless it’s the glistening-abs-at-age-60 kind of sweat.) Meanwhile, in The Recruit, Centineo plays Owen Hendricks, a CIA lawyer fresh out of law school who’s all nervous energy and fake bravado as he navigates everything from escaping assassins in Vienna to emerging unscathed from staff meetings in Langley.
Even in his relatively short career to date, that’s what you could call classic Centineo. He’s excelled at bringing goofball energy to what could otherwise be facile male archetypes—most notably, the dreamy high school jocks in YA rom-coms To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Sierra Burgess Is a Loser. Centineo plays Owen with a similar off-kilter, rough-around-the-edges appeal. And while the show has slick pedigree—it’s based partly on the life of CIA lawyer-turned-power-producer Adam Ciralsky; created by Alexi Hawley (brother of Fargo creator Noah Hawley), who also created ABC’s The Rookie; and boasts directing credits by Doug Liman, director of The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and Edge of Tomorrow—it’s Centineo’s decidedly more rumpled charms that add the secret sauce.
And it seems to be a winning combo. The show debuted as Netflix’s top TV series in the U.S. (ahead of smash-hit Wednesday and the much-covered Harry & Meghan docuseries). Centineo’s performance has gotten notices from critics (“If anyone had any doubts about the power of Noah Centineo, Netflix’s The Recruit will put those to rest”) and even pop culture maven DeuxMoi (“OMG you guys, this show is so good…Noah is like a junior Mark Ruffalo”). Men’s Health talked to Centineo about graduating from teen rom-coms to spy thrillers, hanging out with CIA agents, and working out for some roles that make it to the big screen (Black Adam) and some that don’t (Masters of the Universe).
Men’s Health: You executive produced The Recruit and brought it to Netflix. What attracted you to it so strongly?
Noah Centineo: I read the script before the show had a distribution. Alexi [Hawley, who created the show] had written the pilot. And I fell in love with the character—I thought it was great how when he’s faced with adversity, he doesn’t back down, he doubles down. I love his tenacity, I love how stubborn he is. I thought it was great how he’s a complete fish out of water—and the water is so much deeper than he could possibly know. So he tries to hide it with bravado. And it’s hilarious! The tone of the show goes in so many different directions. There’s a real range, and there’s a lot of fun that you can have within that range.
Your character is partly based on journalist, producer, and former CIA lawyer Adam Ciralsky. What parts of him did you bring into the role?
I mean, the dude is is an animal. It takes a certain type of person to want to be a lawyer, and then to want to be a lawyer at the CIA. You don’t just fall into that kind of work. There were definitely differences between our personalities, but we had a lot in common too, which we learned once we met each other. We both like to observe. We both have an intense hunger to achieve. He was the main source [of inspiration] for me; he had the lived experience. But Alexi had advisors in the writers’ room as well. He’d done his due diligence. So by really leaning on the both of them, I felt like I was prepared.
A few days before the premiere of the show, Ciralsky arranged for you to meet with some CIA staffers at their headquarters. What was that meeting like?
We sat down with six analysts and six attorneys. I asked a bunch of questions and got very few answers. We were given only first names, and I’m very confident that none of those first names were their actual names. I met one individual who was my age, and I asked them questions about their personal life. “Do people know what you do? What do they think you do?” There’s a strong dichotomy between work life and home life for them. Many people in their personal lives often have no idea that they work for the CIA.
There’s a distinct comedic tone to the show and your character. Do the lawyers and analysts you’ve met have much of a sense of humor?
They absolutely do. But they have a real gallows humor. Maybe it’s a sense of humor that’s the product of having so many secrets, being privy to so many things that the general public isn’t. Or maybe it’s because their jobs are high-octane. There’s a pressure that they must feel in subtle ways, in ways that they can never describe out loud, so it comes out in a gallows humor. They were very professional and polite and, come to think of it, very serious. But then there would be cracks where their humor would come through, maybe one or two chuckles throughout. They were very serious, but also very kind and welcoming.
There have been countless movies, TV shows, and books about the CIA. Were you drawn to the way this show depicts the inner machination and office politics of the CIA?
Well, the show is set in the Office of the General Counsel to the CIA. It’s the legal side of the CIA, whose job is to go out and get information, and since they’re operating internationally, they’re breaking laws. So there’s a point of contention there. Something that Adam said really stuck out to Alexi and myself: the Office of the General Counsel to the CIA is just like the Post Office, but for secrets. And there’s something really hilarious about that—it sounds so mundane, rather than this badass spy operation. I thought that was fantastic. As you said, the spy genre has been explored hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times, usually through the eyes of an asset, a special agent, a spy, sometimes even a lawyer, but never through the perspective of someone fresh out of law school, learning about how it all works on their second day on the job.
Your costar Laura Haddock has some great, highly-choreographed fight scenes. You on the other hand have a lot of scenes like the one where you try to get away from some bad guys and accidentally run your car into a wall. How much work goes into creating stunts that intentionally look sloppy?
I’m no professional stunt man, so, you know, that lack of experience was helpful! It’s like the tagline of the show, “Inexperience is an asset.” Owen is not “licensed to kill,” so he’s supposed to be way over his head when he’s fighting. It was all about speaking with our stunt coordinator and Alexi and getting the choreography down, really understanding the movements so that nobody got hurt—and then just doing it like someone that has no idea what they’re doing. Hesitating, freaking out, not looking suave and serious, being driven more by fear than by purpose.
This wasn’t the kind of role where you had to necessarily transform your body. Was that a welcome break after a project like Black Adam, where you had to get in supernaturally good shape?
They’re both great for different reasons, and they both suck for different reasons. I really liked working out for Black Adam; you can’t help but feel really good when you’re constantly moving your body and pushing yourself. I think that’s just one of those things that connects us to our roots. We used to be hunter-gatherers; we used to kill and forage for our food. So we were constantly moving our bodies and having to be present and alert in the moment. I think that’s why I love working out—it helps ground you, not just in terms of physical health, but mental health as well.
You were recently attached to play He-Man in a Masters of the Universe movie that didn’t work out. Had you already started prepping for it when you had to leave the role?
Yeah, I had put on 30 pounds already for it.
So suddenly you’re jacked for no reason. Is that disappointing, or do you get to enjoy the transformation even when the project it’s for doesn’t get off the ground?
“Jacked for no reason” [laughs]. It can be disappointing sometimes, but that’s just how the industry goes. You gotta be cool with that. I still have nothing but great feelings about it. At the end of the day, we’re just trying to tell engaging stories, and that’s a creative process. It can take a long time, and sometimes it just doesn’t work out.
How long had you been working to put on those 30 pounds?
Dude, I did it in three months. It wasn’t all muscle, though. I was drinking three meal replacement shakes every day, getting about 6,000-6,500 calories in. I was waking up at 6:30 A.M., drinking a shake, eating a carton of eggs for breakfast, working out, drinking a second shake, ice, go to lunch and have three servings of Mediterranean food, go to dinner, drink another shake. That was every day, and I was training six days a week. It was hard work, but good work. You see the changes you can make when you really focus. But it was all natural, so it wasn’t like I was suddenly getting ripped and cut and massive. I was a chubby 220, you know what I mean? I was moving weight, and we were going to cut it from there, but we didn’t get to cut.
You’ve been known for several teen romantic comedies like To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and Sierra Burgess Is a Loser. What does the move to a show like The Recruit mean to you?
I thought it was a good step going from romantic comedy to action-comedy thriller. I think it’s important to take into account what the “fans,” if you will, want to see me do, because they’re the reason I get to continue to work the way that I do. So if I can find a way to marry what feels good in my chest, in my heart, what I want to do, what I’m passionate about with what viewers would like to see me [in]—that’s the line I want to toe here. It’s something that’s important to me, and something I think about.
You grew up as a teen appearing in shows for Disney, Nickelodeon, and Freeform before your run of Netflix rom-coms. When you build such a committed young audience who know you—and want to see you—in a certain kind of role, how do you develop your own sense of self and what you want?
You know, that’s a great question. Since I was 15, really all I did were romantic interest roles. All my guest-starring roles on Nickelodeon and Disney were always as the romantic interest of the week with some little one-liners here and there. The Fosters [on ABC Family, later rebranded as Freeform] was a phenomenal opportunity and education for me. They really took me in and allowed me the time to find out what I could do. Before that, I thought maybe all I could really do was be the supporting romantic interest for the lead. They allowed me to take on more serious subject matters, tap into more serious parts of myself, try and fall on my face, and figure it out. I often think of The Fosters as my first two years of college, and To All the Boys and Sierra Burgess and all the things with Netflix as the next two years, and now I’ve graduated. I’ve always felt like The Recruit was something that I couldn’t wait to do, but really I just had to slowly grow into it.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Nojan Aminosharei is the Entertainment Director of Men’s Health and the Special Projects Editor of Harper’s Bazaar. He was previously the Entertainment Director of Hearst Digital Media, and before that a Senior Editor at GQ. Raised in Vancouver, Canada, Nojan graduated from NYU with a master’s degree in magazine journalism. The late Elaine Stritch once told him, “What the fuck kind of name is Nojan? I’m 89 years old, I don’t have time for that shit.”
