The actor opens up his archive to L&rsquo;OFFICIEL and discusses starring in the new HBO series created by his best friend, Rachel Sennott.

&ldquo;I usually play severely unlikable characters,&rdquo; Jordan Firstman deadpans. &ldquo;I write them for myself, too.&rdquo; The actor and producer, 34, is simply well suited for off-putting performances; he lovingly describes the experience of playing the nice boyfriend on FX&rsquo;s English Teacher as &ldquo;uncomfortable,&rdquo; a disconnect that he attributes to his own highly attuned intuition. &ldquo;I think I understand the intricacies of personality deficiencies, and I know how to skewer different personality types,&rdquo; says Firstman, who went viral on Instagram in 2020 for his impressions of obscure, often insufferable archetypes. &ldquo;The only people who are likable to me are flawed and complicated. That&rsquo;s what makes them likable.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Firstman&rsquo;s latest role in HBO&rsquo;s I Love LA is certainly layered. He portrays celebrity fashion stylist Charlie in the Girls-meets-Entourage series, which follows a group of twentysomethings navigating life, love, and social media. Firstman&rsquo;s real-life best friend, Rachel Sennott, is the series&rsquo; star and creator; when she first sent him the script, he realized that he&rsquo;d spoken some of its lines before and that the character must have been written for him. &ldquo;I texted Rachel, Charlie felt pretty familiar... hahaha,&rdquo; he remembers. &ldquo;She laughed but didn&rsquo;t say anything. I think she didn&rsquo;t want to get my hopes up.&rdquo; Despite having a leg up on the competition, Firstman formally auditioned. &ldquo;I went in full throttle with a vibe of, This is my part. These bitches don&rsquo;t have a chance,&rdquo; he says.
Above all else, Firstman&mdash;who is currently writing, directing, and producing his first feature-length film, Club Kid&mdash;wanted to be challenged. And he was, acting out the trials and tribulations of his I Love LA character&rsquo;s spiritual journey. &ldquo;Charlie is successful after a decade of hustling&mdash;but suddenly his career isn&rsquo;t going well and his love life doesn&rsquo;t exist,&rdquo; says Firstman. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s had to climb to get where he is, and it&rsquo;s still not enough.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s a sentiment that looms large in the series&rsquo; depiction of its titular city. &ldquo;You never get to the landing spot,&rdquo; he says of Hollywood. &ldquo;You have to keep fighting and clawing your way up.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Whenever he&rsquo;s struggling, Firstman turns to a book in his archive for motivation: Keith Haring Journals, a compilation of the legendary late artist&rsquo;s handwritten notes&mdash;everyday musings on life in 1980s New York, profound quotes, and reading lists&mdash;accompanied by 90 black-and-white line drawings from his diaries. Firstman has been obsessed with the 2010 title ever since he bought his now-weathered copy as a teen. &ldquo;It became my bible for my whole young adult life, and I still go back to it when I&rsquo;m at a crossroads,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Even more than his art, the way Keith talked about the world inspires me. I love how he lived his life&mdash;it was so full, so extra, and it wasn&rsquo;t just about success or work. He had amazing sex, amazing loves, amazing friends. He also had a naughtiness and an innocence that I really relate to.&rdquo;&nbsp;

'Keith Haring Journals' by Keith Haring, courtesy of Penguin Classics.

Though there&rsquo;s plenty of naughtiness in I Love LA, there&rsquo;s not much innocence to be found in a sharply self-aware take on influencer culture. &ldquo;I think the show gets the current state of TikTok and the Internet right, showing how it&rsquo;s become the norm for someone&rsquo;s rise and fall to be co-opted by someone else,&rdquo; he says. While he&rsquo;s still &ldquo;very online,&rdquo; Firstman doesn&rsquo;t dabble in industry gossip: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m friends with a lot of the people that are written about, so I know what&rsquo;s not true.&rdquo; Another misconception that bothers him? &ldquo;It&rsquo;s weird when people say there are no smart people in LA, because the most ambitious people move here, and ambitious people are usually smart,&rdquo; he laughs. &ldquo;But obviously stereotypes do exist when it comes to influencers who are just going to Erewhon.&rdquo;
Read our full conversation with Firstman, below.
L&rsquo;OFFICIEL: What was it like to work with Rachel on a project that's so personal to her?&nbsp;
JORDAN FIRSTMAN: It was honestly a dream. There was never a bad moment. Shooting is intense, but the set was so fun. And as far as the cast goes, the five of us just love each other. When we first assembled, I felt like I had known them my whole life. I thought, These people are going to be in my life for a long time. It was shot in LA&mdash;a lot of it was actually in my neighborhood&mdash;and I was getting to see my best friend at work every day. It couldn't have been a better job. And it's good. You never really get all of those things lined up.&nbsp;
L&rsquo;O: The dialogue in the show is very on point for the influencer age. Did the cast improv lines at all?&nbsp;
JF: The scripts were so strong. I think HBO really pushed the writers to heighten the comedy, and I'm really happy they did, because the original pilot was a little more realistic. We reshot some of it and there were a lot of jokes; it became much more of a real comedy. I definitely improvised stuff, too&mdash;and some lines I'm pretty proud to say made it to the final. Rachel created a space where everyone could add their own sauce to it. But the scripts were so strong to begin with, so anything else was just extra.

'I Love LA' cast in still from Season 1. Photography courtesy of HBO.

L&rsquo;O: What scene was your favorite to film?&nbsp;
JF: There were so many, but all of the stuff with Froy Guttierez&rsquo;s character, Lukas, was really fun. I have some great scenes with Josh Hutcherson in the finale; we had become really close, even though our characters didn't have that much screen time together. So our bromance, buddy, heart-to-heart episode was special. It felt emotional, and Rachel was directing it, too. It was one of my favorite days on set. But anytime that True [Whitaker] and I were going to be on set together, the crew had to take a deep breath before we came in. We were just, like, chaotic and total troublemakers&mdash;but only when we were together. Separately, we were fine.
L&rsquo;O: As someone who first gained a following on Instagram, what do you think the show gets right about the social media world?&nbsp;
JF: No one is safe, and you can't predict if today is the day you're going to get canceled or if it's going to be another day. I've gone through my own bouts of cancellation here and there, so I think it definitely gets that part right. In Episode 4, [influencer] Quenlin Blackwell [plays a dramatized version of herself] and she's like, If you stop for a day, you will disappear. That stuff is very pertinent. I don't do content on social media anymore; my projects now are the kind of projects I've always wanted. But because I don't make content, there's less excitement for me online. So then I'm like, Wait, I'm literally living my dream, but I'm getting less likes on my post. Why is that making me feel bad? Because I'm still living my dream. You post to get the likes, to then hopefully live your dream. And then when that happens, the likes go away. So it's a very confusing time in an always confusing industry. It&rsquo;s just about figuring out what you love and doing that, I guess.&nbsp;
L&rsquo;O: On the show, your character is very into industry gossip&mdash;he even references Reddit&rsquo;s influencer snark pages at one point. Do you pay any attention to the rumor mill yourself?&nbsp;
JF: No, definitely not. I'm a pretty online person, but I'm not, like, a Deuxmoi person. I don't care. Also, the blind item trend&hellip; I think it's basically AI. Like, it's not real. None of them are ever right. People are just sending in sentences and none of them are fact-checked or verified. It&rsquo;s like, why would I read this fan fiction? I'm definitely very aware of online stuff, more so just what the kids are saying and the popular memes.&nbsp;

Firstman with Froy Guttierez in 'I Love LA,' courtesy of HBO/Kenny Laubbacher.

L&rsquo;O: Charlie is a stylist. Did anyone in particular inspire your portrayal?&nbsp;&nbsp;
JF: I definitely know a lot of gay stylists. But something I haven't seen explored in anything else is this trope of the gay person that will find information for you, or almost make information come true for you if you need it. I think Ayo [Edebiri&rsquo;s pop star] character making Charlie go on this wild goose chase to get shit on Zendaya [in Episode 2] is so real. A lot of these celebrities treat their hair and makeup people and stylists as their resource to get information about other people. It&rsquo;s this kind of currency that these gay guys hold in LA. So that feels very real. And as a gay guy who's friends with women, I feel it sometimes here. It&rsquo;s like, Oh, I'm just a vessel for you to talk about your life and your drama.&nbsp;
L&rsquo;O: What was important to you to get right with Charlie, so that he felt like a main character in his own right among this group of girlfriends?
JF: Rachel was never going to write me a one-dimensional role. Beyond us being friends, she wanted to cast me because she was a really big fan of this film I did calle Rotting in the Sun. She knows my depth and the things that I struggle with or that are important to me. She asked me what I wanted to do, and I was like, Just challenge me. I want a challenging role. And you'll see as the season goes on, my character is challenged a lot. He&rsquo;s very humiliation-prone, and he has this big spiritual journey, too. He is a bitch, a bit of an asshole, and a hustler, but he's stripped of a lot of that and ends the season a transformed man. He's a lot softer and kinder, which is cool. But, yeah, I mean, it would definitely have been possible for her to just write the gay stylist role, but she elevated it and just wrote a very well-rounded character.&nbsp;

Firstman with Ayo Edebiri in 'I Love LA,' courtesy of HBO/Kenny Laubbacher.

L&rsquo;O: What do you hope the audience reaction to Charlie&rsquo;s arc will be?&nbsp;
JF: I hope that they learn something. I think a lot of straight people are going to watch the show, and I think they&rsquo;ll see what the inside of being gay can be&mdash;how much you're fighting, how hard it is to make it or have a personal life. It just feels real. I hope that they see some sort of inner life in Charlie that is relatable. And he's also just iconic. He takes everything in stride, and he is a hustler. When people ask us about what HBO lineage we&rsquo;re replicating, I&rsquo;ve always seen some Ari Gold from Entourage in my character. He refuses to lose. It doesn't matter how much he gets knocked down or embarrassed. He pushes forward and he is really good at his job, too. So I hope they see some strength in the character.
L&rsquo;O: Speaking of HBO lineage shows, there are also some similarities to Girls.
JF: I think it's all of them. It feels like Entourage; it feels like Girls; some parts feel like Sex and the City. Even Veep is referenced. I think the writers are taking notes from all of the shows that they loved, but it feels like its own thing. It's funny to be a part of something that already had a lot of buzz before it was out, because people made such judgments before they&rsquo;d seen anything more than a trailer.
L&rsquo;O: How has I Love LA been different from other shows you've been on, like English Teacher?&nbsp;
JF: I love English Teacher. There's something more low-key about it&mdash;it&rsquo;s a very cozy show to watch and the jokes are rapid-fire. It was a nice thing for me to do, because I've never really gotten to play a nice guy before. Some people may think I'm still crazy on that show, but it's a pretty normal character for me. I think Rachel's show is a little more affronting; there are moments where you're like, Whoa, you really went there with that, or you feel uncomfortable.

Firstman in 'I Love LA,' courtesy of HBO/Kenny Laubbacher.

L&rsquo;O: 2025 was a big year for you&mdash;on top of I Love LA, your debut comedy album, Secrets, came out in the spring, and you wrapped production on your directorial debut, Club Kid. How does it feel to look back on your career trajectory so far?&nbsp;
JF: Things I've wanted have definitely come true. The album was completely out of left field; it was an insane left turn and so fun. But I always dreamed of being on an HBO show. I think I spent all of my 20s wanting my own show and trying to develop those. Everything has definitely happened differently than I had imagined. But I've had a lot of projects that feel really important to my life and my story, and my life is really reflected in my art. It's impossible for it to not be. So I'm really happy. Everything just came together this year, and I was definitely ready for it. I think a lot of the times I thought I was ready, I wasn't as ready as I thought. It happens when it's supposed to happen.&nbsp;
L&rsquo;O: What&rsquo;s been your biggest pinch-me moment to date?&nbsp;
JF: My first year of internet fame, there were so many people who I respected liking me&hellip; and then that kind of lost its wonder. At this point, it's these moments of creativity that happen while you're making something. I had one of them when I shot the scene with Josh for the last episode of I Love LA. I was just like, Wow, Rachel is on fire as a director and we are on fire as actors. This is why I do this&mdash;and I&rsquo;m getting to do it at the level that I want to do it at. Those are the pinch-me moments for me; it's never going to be a red carpet or meeting someone at a party. The creativity and the process, those are the rewarding parts.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Jordan Firstman Thinks 'I Love LA' Gets the State of TikTok—and Cancel Culture—Just Right

Tags

Recommended posts for you

Film & TV

Jordan Firstman Thinks 'I Love LA' Gets the State of TikTok—and Cancel Culture—Just Right

Fashion

This Season, Wrap Up With A Sophisticated Pareo Skirt

Fashion

Gap x Summer Fridays Is Here — and Barbie Ferreira Stars in the Cozy Holiday Campaign

Fashion

Millie Bobby Brown Stuns in Sheer Bodysuit on ‘Tonight Show,’ Talks ‘Stranger Things 5’

Film & TV

All Of The 2026 Golden Globe Nominations

Travel & Living

All The Best Restaurants In Miami To Visit

L'Officiel Art

All the Celebrities Spotted at Art Basel Miami Beach 2025

Fashion

Tod's Rings In The Holiday Season With A Suite Of Sophisticated Handbag Offerings