Josh Heuston is FASHION’s Summer Cover Star

Josh Heuston would like us to be alone together. We’ve just connected via video call—it’s Friday evening for me in New York City and Saturday morning for him in Sydney—and his publicist has mysteriously dropped off the line. I offer to wait for her to regain connection, but Heuston suggests we breeze forth, just the two of us. “I won’t say anything problematic, hopefully, and then we’ll be fine,” he says, flashing me a mischievous movie-star grin. For the first time in our conversation, I struggle to conceal a blush. This will, unfortunately, happen again.

The Australian actor sitting before me is, objectively speaking, the most beautiful man I have ever seen. There is something about the painterly arrangement of his features—a razor-sharp jawline, perfectly messy curls, so-green-they’re-grey eyes—that indicates that public adoration was prophetic­ally baked into his DNA. At the risk of sounding like I’m recounting a dream date, he is also a good listener (often throwing my own questions back to me), slightly sarcastic (hence the casual regard for potentially getting cancelled) and—something made immediately clear by his emerald eye contact alone—dangerously fluent in the art of flirting.

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It’s no wonder the layers of online infatuation with the 29-year-old go deep. Heuston could be a poster boy for the 2010s-era Tumblr aesthetic—where tanned surfers were endlessly reblogged, palm trees adorned phone screens and everyone wanted a Triangl bikini. A surfer from a suburb in northern Sydney, he effortlessly embodied this vibe and was immortalized as such in a 2017 sun-soaked music video by indie band Super Cruel. Since then, he has built a resumé of heartthrob-adjacent roles. In Heartbreak High, he played a sometimes scoundrelly dreamboat with depth. He became the subject of collective crushing again in 2024, when he starred as a tortured prince in Dune: Prophecy. This summer, he appears in Off Campus, a Booktok-beloved series that follows Heuston as a college rock star caught in a love triangle. It’s a role ripe for fan edits, and it’s particularly fitting for his brand of internet boyfriend.

In literary world-building terms, Heuston is what you might call a man written by women. He was raised by his mother and has always been close to his two younger sisters. “It was a very supportive and enriching environment,” he reflects. “Seeing two young women grow up, I got a better understanding of what that experience is like. I think it may have given me a different level of sensitivity.” Part of this sensitivity, too, stems from being perpetually humbled. His family—whom he lives with in Sydney—is big on banter, and as the superstar of the clan, he’s especially susceptible to his sisters’ jabs. Midway through our conversation, he jokingly warns me of their wrath. “If I’m too loud, they’ll wake up and come yell at me.”

Though Heuston has the face of someone who was always going to be famous, he insists it was never on his radar. “I wasn’t the cool guy getting all the girls in school,” he says of his teenage years. “I was the kid playing World of Warcraft.” He lists other formative hobbies to bolster the point: studying math and science; cosplaying as Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings; attending comic conventions in elf ears. “Being a model wasn’t exactly in the cards,” he says.

But puberty had different plans.

At 18, a fresh-out-of-high-school Heuston was working as a waiter at a fashion party when a scout approached him and gave him his card. “I thought he was hitting on me,” Heuston recalls. “So I was like, ‘OK, whatever, thanks man.’” The next week, they ran into each other at another event—this time, the scout was with a high-profile client, and Heuston realized he was legit. Within two weeks, he was being flown to Perth to shoot a swimwear campaign. He has since gone on to work with Gucci, Louis Vuitton, TAG Heuer and BOSS.

While modelling effectively fell into his lap, acting was a pursuit that took practice. The Super Cruel video was his first brush with the small screen, and he found himself craving more. “I’ve always been impulsive and a risk-taker, so I wanted to have a crack at it,” he says. He took lessons, watched as many movies as he could and developed a penchant for people-watching, making up scenarios for stran­gers as a sort of improv exercise. His favourite place to do this is the beach, a particularly vulnerable setting for human behaviour. “There’s a lot of peacocking,” he remarks. “The way people act when they’re sitting on their towels in their box of safety versus how they switch up when they stand to walk into the ocean. It’s very interesting.”

“I think I’ve been blessed with the irrational belief that everything is possible.”

His first major acting challenge came when he was shooting Dune: Prophecy, the HBO show set 10,000 years before the Timothée Chalamet films. He plays Constantine Corrino, the illegitimate son of an emperor who starts the series as hedonistic and directionless but ends with a stoic sense of responsibility. Charting this sort of growth is complicated, but Heuston—who wrapped filming season two mere weeks before our call—feels a personal connection to his character. “Constantine and I have kind of grown up at the same time,” he reflects. “I’ve played him now for a major part of my 20s.” A few months away from turning 30, Heuston notes how much clearer his path has become, onscreen and off.

Still, balancing his schedule can be a bit disorienting. Right before he started filming Dune: Prophecy in Budapest, he had been in Canada shooting Off Campus. “On Thursday, I’m in Vancouver, playing a college rock star in a dorm, and then by Friday, I’m defending the Imperium in space,” he laughs. Going from college musician to brooding prince is jarring—and though the latter is set in a far-off sci-fi realm, Heuston felt more challenged by the former.

For one, he had to learn how to sing and play guitar before filming began. “I bluffed my way into it by learning only three chords for the audition,” he says. “They were like, ‘Great!’ And I was like, ‘Shit, I have to do this now.’ Once you sign on for the role, it’s either sink or swim.”

But swim he did. Heuston plays Justin Kohl, a suave musician whom the main character, Hannah Wells (played by Ella Bright), is desperately trying to make jealous. At this point, I’d be remiss not to ask about Heuston’s own approach to courting a crush. Has he ever gotten this messy? “I’ve definitely played dirty to get someone’s attention,” he says slyly. “I’m not going to say what I did, because that would reveal my ploy. But when you’re crushing on someone, you tend to do irrational things.” Then, like a true monologuing leading man, he takes a turn for the romantic. “The whole notion of loving someone is irrational, because it opens you up to getting hurt. But that’s the best part.”

He may be hamming it up, but I don’t mind. After his having spent over a decade in the public eye, it’s clear that Heuston has developed a high tolerance for emotional intensity. Despite nearly 800,000 Instagram followers and a comment section perennially flooded with heart eyes, he describes his relationship with social media as healthy and non-obsessive. When he returns to Sydney in between work obligations, he hangs out with the same friends he’s had since childhood (plus his sisters, if they’ll have him). And in his personal life, he holds certain boundaries with charming firmness. When I inquire about his signature scent or his thoughts on being a Scorpio, he shoots back a cheeky, blush-inducing smile. “It’s a secret.”

Top, pants and undergarments, Dolce & Gabbana. Shoes, Jimmy Choo. rings, bracelet and Earring, Cartier.

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One thing Heuston is very open about, however, is his fondness for wearing his heart on his sleeve. “I don’t believe in playing hard to get,” he tells me plainly. “What have you got to lose? People tend to look at the worst thing that could happen, but no one ever considers the best thing that could happen.”

I point out the theme of well-timed spontaneity that winds its way through Heuston’s career. It seems he’s always ad libbing his way into his next big break. “I think I’ve been blessed with the irrational belief that everything is possible,” he reflects. “I’ve kind of always had the mentality that I’ll fail up.” What is a standout instance, I ask, in which Heuston completely winged something and it turned out spectacularly? He wastes no time in answering. “So far, my whole life.”

Photography, Nick Merzetti. Publisher, Deidre Marinelli. Creative direction, George Antonopoulos. Editor-in-Chief, Liz Guber. Styling, Ashley Galang. Hair and makeup, Angela Lee for Plutino Group/Nars. Lighting technician, Juan Delgado. Photo assistant, Lee Kosse. Fashion assistant, Berlin Ventura. Fashion intern, William Kadima. Shot on location at The Roosevelt Hotel with support from Los Angeles Tourism.