“I was unconsciously acting before it became a conscious choice.”

Thomas Doherty

After playing cheeky bad boys in High Fidelity and Gossip Girl, the 29-year-old actor is taking on a much darker role in his first indie film, Dandelion

By Jeanne Malle

Thomas Doherty immediately felt familiar, as if we had met before. The Scottish-born, New York-based actor called me from Amsterdam, where he was on vacation with his girlfriend, the Dutch model Yasmin Wijnaldum. The couple had just returned from the Monaco Grand Prix. “Have you ever been to Monte Carlo?,” Doherty asked me. His friendly, easygoing nature reminded me of his character from Hulu’s 2020 adaptation of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. Doherty played Liam, a 19-year-old heartthrob who has a fling with an older woman, played by Zoë Kravitz.

“I’m quite cheeky as a person,” said Doherty. This attitude was on display in High Fidelity and the 2021 reboot of Gossip Girl, in which he played Max, a wealthy 17-year-old playboy stuck in a love triangle.