Josh Hutcherson’s Secret to Being an “Internet Boyfriend”? Stay Offline.
HEN THE FIRST Five Nights at Freddy’s movie was released in 2023, Josh Hutcherson said his character, Mike Schmidt, may be the role he related with more than any other. Not the part where Mike tangles with possessed animatronic pizzeria mascots, but the part where he has a deep connection to his baby brother (Hutcherson’s real little bro, Connor, has also dabbled in acting) and an obsession with the meaning behind dreams (He himself is fascinated by “lucid dreaming and dream incubation).
Hutcherson has been acting since the age of nine, when he picked up a phone book in his family’s Kentucky home and called himself an agent. In the time since, he’s played ordinary guys in varying degrees of extraordinary circumstance more than a few times: a reluctant revolutionary in The Hunger Games (making him a reluctant meme in the process), the adopted child of a loving lesbian couple who still yearns to meet his biological dad in The Kids Are All Right, a listless gamer yanked into real sci-fi shenanigans in the cult comedy series Future Man.
But on the eve of Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 hitting theaters following the original’s blockbuster success, Mike Schmidt may have met his match—when it comes to the claim of Hutcherson’s most relatable role. In Rachel Sennott’s buzzy HBO comedy series I Love LA, Hutcherson plays Dylan, the token even-keeled straight guy in a group of over-the-top girls and gays. It’s a part he proudly plays among the cast off-camera too.
“I realized that I haven’t played a normal guy in a normal, real-life reality since I was 15 in The Kids Are All Right,” Hutcherson says. “It’s been really fun to get back to the basics and just be a dude in the world having fun and fucking shit up.” Viewers are enjoying it too, with Dylan’s normcore charm landing Hutcherson “internet boyfriend” status.
Source: Men’s Health
