The spring of 2020 was supposed to be Isaac Powell’s big time. The Greensboro, North Carolina, native was cast as Tony in director Ivo Van Hove’s much-hyped reimagining of “West Side Story,” and the show opened to packed houses in late February.
Then, of course, Broadway closed on March 12, 2020, and with it the production. Suddenly, weeks after his surrender, he returned to his home in North Carolina, where he began to pinch.
“It was wild. “I’m having this amazing time on Broadway, this opening role and this amazing new revival of ‘West Side Story,’ and things are really exciting and going in a really big way,” he said. “I went from doing several nights a week back to my parents’ house and started spending more time with my family,” he said from London, according to the Radar Project.
Powell regrouped and decided to change course and focus on getting into film and television. During the outbreak, he shot the film adaptation of “Dear Evan Hansen” before getting the call to join “American Horror Story,” which has now run for two seasons. Powell’s time is finally underway, with several projects lined up, including a film at Sundance next month.
Ryan Murphy of “AHS” Powell, who has been a fan since the beginning, said he would binge watch the show’s first seasons in the summers after high school and then throw viewing parties in his college dorm room.
“So when [Murphy] It came to me, it was easy. “I was saying yes before he told me what the plot was,” Powell says.
The latest season, which aired this fall, focused on New York’s 1980s gay scene. Even though it was his second fight with “AHS,” Powell said this one didn’t react like his other.
“This season has really reached out to the queer community, especially the queer community in New York, and I think that maybe when that community sees themselves in that situation, it allows people to really shut down and maybe invest in a way that they didn’t know. past seasons,” he says. “It’s clear to me that audiences have stayed with this season for whatever reason.”
Being part of the cast allowed him to work with many of his mentors in the television space such as Zachary Quinto, Russell Tovey and Denis O’Hare.
“These are the guys that I look up to as representation in the industry. When I graduate college, I have a list of self-employed people that I hope to have, my role models in the industry, and I remember some of the names on that list,” says Powell. It was very special for me to be made to feel like I belonged.”
Since moving to New York following graduation, Powell, now 27, has honed his fashion sense, recently modeling for Joseph Altuzarra at Altu World and at Amy’s Art Basel event.
“I have always been in love with fashion and obsessed with fashion photography. I experimented a lot with fashion and my own personal style, especially when I was coming into my own as a teenager. So when I first moved to New York and suddenly I was with so many people in that industry, I was finding any way I could to get myself involved in the fashion industry,” he said.
Next month, Powell will attend his first Sundance Film Festival (his first in-person appearance since the pandemic) for his film adaptation of the 2017 viral New Yorker, “Cat Man.” The film’s lead, Margot (Emilia Jones), who is an ex-boyfriend of Clay, is not familiar with the script when auditioning for the part, but quickly gets the hang of it after the first reading.
“I was really excited about the script and what they did with it and how they really enhanced it and made it very cinematic,” he said. “So it was really fun to be a part of that.”
And later? He won’t be back in London until the summer, giving him the top half of the new year to “really explore and enjoy the freedom I have.”
“I’ve been working a lot for the past few years, and I’m hoping this spring will be a good break to travel and enjoy my life a little more.”
That, and maybe some rest. He’s not prone to making New Year’s resolutions, but what if he does? “Maybe get more sleep.”
