By JULIA MOORE
You wouldn’t know it from watching his breakout turn on The White Lotus, but Leo Woodall loves romance. “I’m a sucker for a ’90s rom-com,” says Woodall, who shocked audiences with his audacious turn on season 2 of the HBO series playing an enigmatic grifter.
The 27-year-old English actor has a knack for portraying privileged playboys. Now he’s poised for Netflix-heartthrob status with a leading role on the romantic series One Day, a fresh adaptation of David Nicholls’s 2009 novel, launching Feb. 8. It’s all part of a high-profile trajectory he didn’t see coming. “Hollywood was never really in the conversation— that was just a freak accident,” says Woodall, who comes from a family of thespians. “But when I told my family that I wanted to be an actor, a lot of them weren’t that surprised.”
The London-based star’s parents met in acting school, and even his grandmother was in the business. Growing up as the youngest of three siblings, he was a “very theatrical” child, “one of those annoying ones that was just constantly wanting to perform for people,” he says. He eventually studied acting at a drama school in London: “When I decided this is what I wanted to do, I was all in.”
Smaller parts on shows like Citadel and Vampire Academy ultimately led him to the Sicilian set of The White Lotus, where the opportunity to play a cocky Essex lad who woos an assistant (Haley Lu Richardson) staying in a luxury seaside hotel with her boss (Jennifer Coolidge) proved a unique challenge. “It felt very much like a stars-aligned moment when I got that,” says Woodall.
‘It was one of the best times ever. I was proud to be a part of that’—ON THE WHITE LOTUS
The sun-drenched experience was “like one big holiday,” he says. “Because there were so many characters and so many storylines; there were so many days off,” recalls Woodall. One of his favorite memories: “There was a really funny moment where myself, Meghann Fahy and F. Murray Abraham were at a bar near the hotel watching a horse race. My horse won, and I was so excited, and Murray thought that I just won a million pounds. And when I told him that I hadn’t put that much money on it, and it was just the glory, he was like, ‘What the f--- ?’ He couldn’t believe I was so happy just to win 10 quid.”
The cast reconvened at the Emmys in January, cheering on Coolidge as she took home Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. In the glare of the growing media spotlight, Woodall has kept mum about his offscreen relationship with Fahy, 33, as has she. “I can’t confirm or deny,” Fahy said on the Emmys red carpet. “Suffice it to say, Italy was good for me in more than one way.” Woodall’s days off are spent doing “just normal stuff. I watch football or hang out with my friends or hang out with my family,” he says simply
One Day, previously adapted into the 2011 film starring Anne Hathaway, marks the first leading role for Woodall, who portrays an affluent Oxford playboy whose evolving relationship with his close friend (Ambika Mod) begins with their final night at the university in 1988. The series revisits the pair annually over two decades as they grow and change. He and Mod broke the ice over gin and tonics as they prepared for the meaty love story. “There was definitely a serious responsibility that me and Ambika both felt to tell their stories—and stories that already meant so much to fans of the book,” says Woodall, who felt “protective” over his character.
It’s a starkly different turn from his time on The White Lotus, a period of his life that “does feel like a world away now,” he says. Yet one thing remains: “I get recognized because I dress like my character,” he admits, nodding to his perennial wardrobe of “trainers and trackies.” Cue his red carpet-approved stylist. “He also definitely caters to the fact that I was not very fashiony beforehand,” says Woodall. “I’m slowly getting more used to it.”
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: RHYS FRAMPTON; FABIO LOVINO/HBO; NETFLIX; CHELSEA LAUREN/SHUTTERSTOCK