Avan Jogia Chooses Roles and Directing After 20 Years
avan jogia, 34, says 20 years of making stuff have brought him to a point where he wants to decide how he makes and what he wants to make. He is now choosing projects that immerse both him and the audience, with Backrooms and 56 Days sitting at the center of that shift.
Victorious to Backrooms
He said he got his start in Hollywood on Nickelodeon’s Victorious, then later appeared on the teen drama Twisted. By his own account, he was pushed through the kids’ television program machine in his late teens and early ’20s, then spent years figuring out where his work belonged outside it.
That move is showing up in the material he is taking on now. Earlier this year, he starred opposite Dove Cameron in the Prime Video romantic psychological thriller 56 Days, and on Friday Backrooms released after he worked with Kane Parsons on the film. The shift is less about chasing a bigger platform than about choosing projects that let him shape the experience more deliberately.
Five-Year-Old Ambition
Jogia said he started talking about acting when he was 6, and his parents held off on classes until he was 12. After that, he said he did commercial work and then narrative parts in Vancouver, Canada, before dropping out of high school and moving to California.
He described living in a trailer behind someone’s house for $300 in the valley after that move, then getting Victorious. The early years read like a scramble for access; the present looks more selective, with his own quote about wanting roles that immersed him and the audience now matching the kinds of projects he is choosing.
Halsey Project Ahead
He said he is collaborating with his fiancée, Halsey, on their new movie. That adds another layer to the pivot: he is not only acting in other people’s worlds, but also building one with a creative partner who is already part of his private life.
His own line about wanting "to navigate where I want this ship to go" fits the work in front of him. After 20 years in the business, Jogia is acting less like someone being routed and more like someone drawing the map.
