Jude Wilson is making a name for himself in Hollywood.
After his breakthrough performance as Jerome in the hit gay series Fellow Travelers, the handsome actor is now tapping into another queer role in the new Netflix series Crew Girl.
The teen sports drama follows a fiercely driven 16-year-old female athlete who earns a spot on the men's rowing team. There, she meets Baloo (played by Wilson), an outwardly queer teammate who experiences his own beautiful storyline of navigating a new relationship.
"I'm a huge fan of young adult romances. What I like about Baloo and his queerness is that he isn't keeping a secret from his teammates. They treat him like any other brother. He just loves chilling his bros and he just happens to be gay," Wilson tells Out.
Beyond his accomplishments as a queer athlete, Baloo experiences his own version of a Heated Rivalry romance as he starts to fall for a handsome competitor from the opposing school.
"What we can learn from Baloo is that he's unapologetically himself. Overall, he's just himself. I personally learned a lot from that. If you want to find your people, you can't be afraid to show who you are. That's how they find you. It's one of the best times for queer representation in media."
Although Crew Girl does a beautiful job portraying a queer romance on screen, Wilson's powerful portrayal of Jerome on Fellow Travelers is still widely discussed and praised to this day. As a young gay Black man in San Francisco, Jerome finds out he's HIV+ at the height of the AIDS epidemic.
"Fellow Travelers was one of the coolest experiences ever. It was a dream come true. It was very surprising receiving a lot of messages after the show released of people who were very moved by Jerome's story. It was a huge motivator of why I'm in this business and the stories I want to tell. It was really moving and heartbreaking to receive some of those messages. I can't even imagine all of the people who didn't message me that were affected by it. I'm really glad it's still talking being talked about today."
Crew Girl is streaming now on Netflix. Fans can follow Jude Wilson on Instagram here.
