Sexy Nicholas Alexander Chavez is Making Good Impressions in Hollywood
It might seem like producer Ryan Murphy and Nicholas Alexander Chavez have a special working relationship. Chavez has been cast in Murphy's shows that take up half of his acting career. The 25-year-old actor only has four titles on his IMDb credits with one in production: a reboot of the '90s slasher "I Know What You Did Last Summer."
Murphy has a sixth sense when it comes to casting his projects. His male stars are usually talented, sexy, and relatively unknown. That is the case of Chavez who may be popular among soap fans who know him as Spencer on "General Hospital," but for the rest of us, he is the other murderous Menendez brother, Lyle, in Murphy's highly successful Netflix series "Monsters." He plays opposite Cooper Koch, another Murphy find.
He returned to TV right after finishing "Monsters" to star in "Grotesquerie," another Ryan Murphy production, this time playing a sexy priest.
"It was so cool that Ryan felt compelled to involve me in another one of his worlds, in another one of his projects," Chavez told Town and Country. "It's very different than Menendez, and the character that I play allows me to lean into different colors and pockets of my artistry, which I was very thankful for. It was definitely a cool and demanding experience."
Chavez has been acting since high school. In ninth and tenth grade he pursued speech and debate, and then in his third year he got into theater, his first role being Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird."
"It happened in a funny way because the kid who was supposed to play Atticus got sick a few weeks before [opening], and the director asked if I could [take] his place," he told Tudum. "A lot of people in the faculty came to watch the show, and they gave me really, really positive feedback and suggested I think about doing this as my career."
It's a far cry from what he was doing before his big break. He spent a little time delivering items for customers through Postmates and then he tried selling cars and insurance.
"There's probably not a product under the sun that I haven't tried to sell—it really does a good job of preparing you to hear all the nos that sometimes come along with acting," he said, "especially in those early days as you're trying to make a name for yourself." In 2021, he built that name into something big, winning a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Performer just a year later for his role as Spencer Cassadine.
He played that role for three years before impressing Murphy so much he said he wouldn't make "Monsters" without him. In Interview magazine, Chavez remembered the day he got the good news.
"So I took a little field trip to Santa Barbara with my girlfriend to get my mind off of it and then I came back to L.A. and basically, the second I got back within the city limits, I got the call. It is one of my most cherished memories. As actors, we go through so much to get that one big 'yes.' To get that and to feel like you're being seen as an artist and as a human being, I couldn't have been happier."
The young actor might not have known how much he was committing. If there is one thing Murphy doesn't do, it's gay baiting. At some point, you might have to get naked if you're hired, or at least do a thirst scene no matter what the subject matter is. In "Monsters" there were more than a few.
Chavez brought his fine-tuned physique to the role. A pool scene shows both Chavez and Koch in tight Speedos, and in another, both brothers are showering together in a steamy embrace. Murphy has made a career of titillating his audience by showcasing hot men in various stages of undress. It sells. Aaron Spelling did it for network TV back in the '70s, coining the phrase "jiggle TV" because pretty actresses never wore bras. Now with social media, a good male thirst trap photo can build a Hollywood career.
Chavez doesn't delve too much into that or his private life on social media, but it's a nice place to gawk at his photo spreads or keep up with what he is working on. But don't be surprised if this young, handsome actor goes on to do great things in the entertainment world. He recently went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and penned a reminder to himself.
"When I was there, this is what I wrote down: 'In my career, I'm determined to make a significant contribution to art and to the world,' and I'm really curious to find out what that means for me," Chavez told Tudum. "I'm going to find my own path, and I'm going to make meaningful use of the time that I have on Earth."
As previously stated, his next project is "I Know What You Did Last Summer." He will join legacy actors Jennifer Love-Hewitt and Freddy Prinze Jr. for this highly anticipated horror movie. Beyond that, he doesn't seem to have anything scheduled. But it probably won't be long before that changes.
"This part of my life feels like a discovery," he told People Magazine. "I get to have the privilege of taking some meetings with some really, really cool, impressive, and creative human beings, who are creating some of the most interesting art in the world right now. And so I'm really excited to see where these meetings lead to, and what projects will come from it, and I'll discover what's next for me."