Avan Jogia, newly linked romantically to Halsey, starred in 2021’s Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City and opened up about the role to Uproxx at the time.
“I’m a big fan of the games,” the Canadian actor, musician, and poet said when asked what drew him to the film. “I grew up playing them. I put in 500-plus hours as Leon before I was ever playing Leon in a movie. So mostly it’s sort of a childhood dream. It’s one of these moments in your life where you’re like, ‘Oh wow I’m playing a character that I played as a kid.’ It’s an odd one and a really exciting one too.”
Having millions of strangers gawking at his love life, or perceived love life, is probably also an odd experience that Jogia couldn’t have possibly dreamt up as a child.
This week, outlets such as E! News and Page Six published paparazzi photos of Halsey, 28, and Jogia, 31, holding hands and kissing while out together in the Los Angeles area.
Jogia is likely best known as Beck Oliver from Nickelodeon’s Victorious, a role he held for 56 episodes from 2010-13. Jogia has 44 acting credits to his name, as per his IMDb page. This year, he appeared in Netflix’s Choose Love and another film called Johnny & Clyde, which is available for purchase on Amazon Prime Video or YouTube.
In fact, Jogia’s 2023 began with his directorial debut, Door Mouse, an “oddball neo-noir” centering around “a comic-book creator working at a burlesque club [who] enlists the help of a colleague to figure out what’s behind the disappearances of young women in their circle.” (He also wrote and starred in the movie.)
“This was born out of not feeling very much agency in the film industry, especially as an actor of color,” Jogia told Teen Vogue for an interview published around the premiere of Door Mouse this January — an interview in which he also admitted he isn’t particularly fond of his Nickelodeon roots. “I was looking to find parts that I felt like I could dig a little deeper into as an actor and train myself to give good performances and improve as an actor. Good parts are hard enough to get ahold of, you know, regardless of [diversity]. And then you ask, how many films looking for a brown man are made a year? Of those roles, how many see me for that part? So I was frustrated and I wanted to find agency, so I started writing.”
Jogia’s artistry extends into music and poetry through Saint Ivory, a duo he has with his brother, Ketan. Jogia released new music from Saint Ivory on August 31, as he posted on Instagram.
While Halsey and Jogia have only recently been linked publicly, Halsey commented a flame emoji on Jogia’s Instagram post from May 19.
In April, Halsey reportedly separated from Alev Aydin and filed for “full physical custody and joint legal custody” of their two-year-old child, Ender, according to E! at the time.