Months after Heated Rivalry took the world by storm at the end of last year, a new hockey romance — this time a straight one — has skated into the hearts of fans everywhere.
Off Campus, the steamy romance based on Elle Kennedy’s bestselling series of the same name, may follow the heterosexual love story between Briar University hockey captain Garrett Graham (Belmont Cameli) and aspiring musician Hannah Wells (Ella Bright), but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any LGBTQ+ characters.
Not only does Hannah have a gay bestie, but the show added a nonbinary character to the cast.
Jules plays a pivotal role in Hannah and Garrett’s fake-dating scheme, helps flesh out John Logan’s backstory, and provides plenty of snarky remarks, but in the real world, the character’s addition has also sparked controversy.
Who is Jules, the nonbinary character in ‘Off Campus’?
Jules in 'Off Campus' season 1.
Prime Video
Jules Logan (Julia Sarah Stone) is the sassy nonbinary sibling of John Logan (Antonio Cipriano), Garrett’s best friend, roommate, and teammate, whose love story with Grace Ivers (India Fowler) is the focus of the second book in the Off Campus series.
Jules is an invention of the show and plays a big role in multiple major plotlines despite being a side character. The sassy college student and die-hard hockey fan runs the Fifth Line gossip account and acts as the commentator for the Briar U hockey games. In Hannah and Garrett's quest to convince her crush, Justin Kohl (Josh Heuston), that she is actually dating Garrett in order to catch his attention, the fake-dating couple has to convince Jules that they’re in a relationship so that the rest of the college buys into their deception.
Jules also helps Logan deal with his crush on Hannah and is the one who pushes him to be supportive of their mother, who is struggling with drug addiction that has landed her in rehab for the fifth time.
Who is Julia Sarah Stone?
Before starring as Jules in Off Campus, Canadian actress Julia Sarah Stone made a name for herself starring in popular TV shows and a handful of indie movies.
Stone starred in the third season of AMC’s The Killing, as well as episodes of R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour, Falling Skies, and Aftermath. She has also appeared in movies like Wet Burn, Allure opposite Evan Rachel Wood, The Unseen, and the horror film Come True, which won her a Best Lead Performance nomination at the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards.
Is Jules in the ‘Off Campus' book series?
No. Well, at least not the way they appear in the show. In the romance book series, Logan doesn’t have a nonbinary sibling. Instead, he has an older brother who runs the family’s auto repair shop, which Logan is supposed to take over instead of joining the NHL because of his dad’s disability and alcoholism.
In the books, there is a character named Jules, but he bears no resemblance to Jules from the show. In The Chase and The Risk, Jules appears as a male football player and side character who is described as having dark hair and dimples.
What are people saying about a nonbinary character being added to 'Off Campus'?
Transphobic and anti-LGBTQ+ fans of the show were angry that a nonbinary character had been added to the show when they weren’t included in the source material. This very vocal minority made their opinions known on social media, but there were other people who claimed not to like Jules simply because they found the character obnoxious.
"The only thing this whole fandom ALL agrees on is that the character of Jules was useless and annoying," one person wrote on X (formerly Twitter), while someone else posted, “Off campus fans, why is Jules EVERYWHERE.”
Other people took to social media to call out the toxic part of the fandom that has been purposely misgendering Jules.
Still, there were other fans who were happy to have more diversity added to the cast, but were frustrated to discover that the character is “annoying.”
Apparently, no matter what the creators of Off Campus did with their nonbinary character, someone was going to hate the choices.
