Brian Jordan Alvarez | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1987-07-09)July 9, 1987 (age 37) New York City, US |
| Education | University of Southern California (BFA) |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 2009–present |
| Known for | |
Brian Jordan Alvarez (born July 9, 1987)[1][2] is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is best known for creating and starring in theFX comedy seriesEnglish Teacher.[3] He is also known for his original songs, recurring roles as Estéfan inWill & Grace (2018–2020) and Wesley inJane the Virgin (2015–2016), appearances in such films asM3GAN and80 for Brady, and his own self-produced films and series, most notably his 2016 web seriesThe Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo.[4]
Alvarez was born inManhattan, New York City to Paul Jordan and Angela Jordan Alvarez, an electrical engineer and Spanish instructor, respectively.[5][6] He has a sister, Catalina.[6] He is of Colombian descent matrilineally and has roots from the American South from the other side of his family. He speaks Spanish fluently.[6][7]
He spent his childhood inWinchester, Tennessee,[7] where he began acting and making movies.[5] In middle school, he was teased and bullied for his sexuality.[4] He went on to attendSaint Andrew's Sewanee School and then the high school program at theUniversity of North Carolina School of the Arts inWinston-Salem, North Carolina.[5][8] Heavily involved in his school's theater program, he continued to study acting at theUSC School of Dramatic Arts.[4] He graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting and settled down in Los Angeles the following year.[9]
In 2012, Alvarez collaborated withCollegeHumor on an episode titled "Gay Men Will Marry Your Girlfriends".[10][11][12] In 2016, Alvarez wrote, produced, directed and starred in the five-part web comedy seriesThe Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo. The series played at the 2016Tribeca Film Festival as part of its New Online Work.[13] The series was nominated for theGotham Award for Breakthrough Series – Shortform and was namedIndiewire's number-one web series for the year.[13][14]
He has performed roles in several television shows including:Will & Grace,Life in Pieces,Jane the Virgin, andGo-Go Boy Interrupted.[4] In October 2014, he was cast in a supporting role in the MTV scripted comedy pilotSelf Promotion.[15] The show, directed byZach Braff, was ultimately not picked up by the network.[16]
On April 22, 2015, Alvarez co-starred on season 6, episode 18 ofHot in Cleveland titled "Cleveland Calendar Girls." He played the photographer who took engagement photos for Joy (played by Jane Leeves) and nude photos for Elka (played by Betty White) and her friends as they put together a nude calendar of elderly women to raise money for the Cleveland Animal Shelter.[17]
On October 17, 2016, Alvarez was on season 6, episode 3 of2 Broke Girls titled "That '80s Movie" directed byFred Savage. Alvarez played Tad, one half of a gay couple Caroline (played by Beth Behrs) called her "hot gay guys" that she was trying to use to lure cool clientele into her new bar.[18]
From 2018 - 2020, Alvarez played the recurring role of Estéfan Gloria,Jack McFarland's fiancé and later husband, in all three seasons of the 2010s revival of NBC'sWill & Grace.[19]
In August 2020, it was announced Alvarez was cast in theNetflix quarantineanthology seriesSocial Distance. He appeared in the episode "Zero Feet Away" oppositeMax Jenkins.[20] Alvarez has also made appearances on Australian television due to his ability to do a convincingAustralian accent.[21]
Alvarez has gained prominence for hisviral videos onInstagram andTikTok, in which he often portrays a rotating cast of absurdist characters using thickaccents and distorting facialfilters.[22] In September 2023, he posted a video featuring his character TJ Mack performing animprovised song titled "Sitting", which quickly became an online sensation, accumulating millions of views and beingremixed andcovered by fans in various genres.[23][24][25] Versions of "Sitting" have appeared on the radio in both the United States and Australia, andVanity Fair has described it as possibly 2023's "song of the summer."[25][26]
In November 2024, he went viral for daily shirtless dancing videos promoting his showEnglish Teacher.[27] He dances to a trending audio clip from "Teach Me Tonight," episode 19 of season two ofGilmore Girls. In the audio, the character Kurt says, "I love your daughter," and when his father responds, "What do you have to offer her?" Kurt replies, "Nothing, only this," and then music starts. Sometimes Alvarez takes off articles of clothing while dancing, with one journalist making a compilation of twenty-two different shirtless videos of Alvarez doing that trend that went viral.[28]
Alvarez has a 'signature move' of lifting one leg at some point during each dancing video. He initially started posting the videos because he wanted to drum up more buzz and viewership forEnglish Teacher, and after posting show clips, reviews, and the more traditional posts to get the word out, without any of them seeing much traction, he tried the dancing angle saying, "Desperation is a powerful thing."[29]
Around 2021, Alvarez said that he was retiring from writing and producing to focus on acting, butPaul Simms, now one of the executive producers ofEnglish Teacher convinced Alvarez otherwise. Simms had been impressed after watching old episodes ofThe Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo and asked Alvarez to creative a TV show. Alvarez said of their meeting that he told Simms "'I tried to make TV shows in the system; I don't know how to get through the notes process,' and Paul said, 'I'm going to be your guide, you're coming out of retirement, we're making a TV show.' This is what you want in your life, this divine voice to float down from heaven and say, 'You can do it, I believe in you.'"[30]
When coming up with the idea forEnglish Teacher, Alvarez leaned on inspiration from his family as his mom and sister and both teachers. Having grown up in a blue dot in a red state (Tennessee), he thought setting the show in the suburbs of Austin, Texas would be fertile ground for having all types of characters and opinions, saying "There's no set of opinions you can really avoid in a public high school, so I knew all of that in one place could make for good comedy."[30]
In November 2023, it was announced thatFX had ordered Alvarez's 2022English Teacher comedy pilot to series. Alvarez created the series and stars as the protagonist, an English teacher working at a high school in Austin, Texas.[31] He is also a writer, director, and producer on the show.[32]
In September 2024, the first season ofEnglish Teacher premiered to critical acclaim.The New York Times called it one of "Best TV Shows of 2024."[33]Entertainment Weekly said the show got an "A+ grade."[34]
On February 7, 2025,English Teacher was renewed for a second season.[35][36]
In 2025, Alvarez played onCelebrity Jeopardy! againstRoy Wood Jr. andPhoebe Robinson. Alvarez played for the charityCommunities in Schools and won $30,000 on their behalf, coming in second to Roy Wood Jr.[37][38]
When speaking of howThe Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo relates to his experience as a gay man in Los Angeles, Alvarez said, "It's pretty easy to be queer in the city. The show can look like a gay utopia maybe because I kind of live in a queer utopia."[39]
He almost didn't graduate college due to alcohol and drug use and got sober because "he was scared not knowing if he was going to be as successful as he knew he wanted to be."[39]
While a student atUniversity of Southern California, Alvarez allegedlystalked a female friend's boyfriend who later filed ano-contact order against him.[40] Another student alleged that Alvarezgroped him withoutconsent, saying, "It got to the point where I was so uncomfortable I didn't want to be in the same room with him".[41][42]
In August 2024, Alvarez'sThe Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo co-star Jon Ebeling, who played Billy in the series, posted anInstagram Story alluding to having beensexually assaulted by Alvarez, comparing his experiences working with him to the plot of theNetflix seriesBaby Reindeer.[43] The following month, the day beforeEnglish Teacher's premiere, Ebeling filed a sexual assault report against Alvarez with theLos Angeles Police Department for the 2016 incident, whichVulture covered in a December 2024 story. Ebeling alleged that Alvarezsexually assaulted Ebeling by performing nonconsensualoral sex on him during the shooting of a 2016 episode. Alvarez denied the story through a spokesperson alleging that "all interactions with Ebeling were always entirely consensual" and that he believed the 2016 incident to be consensual because of their prior sexual history.[44][45][46]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Hot in Cleveland | Ian | Episode: "Cleveland Calendar Girls" |
| Life in Pieces | Jorge | Episode: "Interruptus Date Breast Movin'" | |
| RocketJump: The Show | Sherlock | Episode: "Fan Friction" | |
| Self Promotion | Wyatt | TV pilot | |
| 2015–2016 | Jane the Virgin | Wesley Masters | 4 episodes (season 2) |
| 2016 | Gay Skit Happens | Various characters | 2 episodes;Logo TV sketch comedy show |
| 2 Broke Girls | Tad | Episode: "And the 80's Movie" | |
| The Great Indoors | Brian | Episode: "No Bad Ideas" | |
| 2017–2019 | Get Shorty | Jayson / Robert | 9 episodes (seasons 1 & 3) |
| 2018 | Grace and Frankie | Willy | Episode: "The Rats" |
| 2018–2020 | Will & Grace | Estéfan Gloria | 13 episodes (seasons 9–11) |
| 2019 | Special | Shay | Episode: "Chapter Three: Free Scones" |
| Grand Hotel | Topher | Episode: "Long Night's Journey Into Day" | |
| Black Jesus | Phil Osterfawk | Episode: "The Real Jesus of Compton" | |
| 2020 | Corporate | Bonan Marrow | Episode: "The Wind of God" |
| Social Distance | Marco | Episode: "Zero Feet Away" | |
| 2023 | Ten Year Old Tom | (voice) | Episode: "Sweet Home Cancún" |
| Praise Petey | Emmett (voice) | 10 episodes | |
| 2024 | Grimsburg | (voice) | Episode: "The Flute-itive" |
| Hailey's On It! | David (voice) | Episode: "Get Whale Soon" | |
| English Teacher | Evan Marquez | 8 episodes; also creator, writer, executive producer, and director | |
| 2025 | StuGo | Van (voice) | Episode: "Moon Moon" |
| Year | Title | Role | Functioned as | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director | Screenwriter | Producer | ||||
| 2008 | Ted White-Knockelby Pursues the American Dream | — |  | Short film | ||
| 2009 | In The Dark | Alex Emerson | Short film | |||
| 2009 | Herpes Boy | DragonSlayer1985 | ||||
| 2010 | Consent | Seth | ||||
| 2011 | Come Visit | — | | | | Short film |
| 2014 | The Setup | Elliot | ||||
| 2014 | Wave | Tim | | Short film | ||
| 2016 | The Operator | Allen (Voice) | Short film | |||
| 2016 | Paco | Paco | Short film | |||
| 2016 | The Happys | Patrick | ||||
| 2016 | Going Together | Griffin | Short film | |||
| 2017 | Everything is Free | Ivan | | | | Also composer and editor; distributed in 2019 |
| 2017 | How to Be a Slut in America | Brian | | | | Also editor; released in three parts |
| 2018 | Grandmother's Gold | Danny | | | | Also composer and editor |
| 2018 | Are You Still Singing? | Office Manager | Short film | |||
| 2018 | Stuck | Raymond | ||||
| 2019 | Web Series: The Movie | Dave Stdert | | | | Also editor |
| 2019 | Simply Having | Remly LaMore | | Short film | ||
| 2021 | A Spy Movie | Jack Johnson | | Short film. Producer and actor. | ||
| 2022 | M3GAN | Cole | ||||
| 2023 | 80 for Brady | Derek | ||||
| 2025 | M3GAN 2.0 | Cole | Post-production | |||
Selected credits
| Year | Title | Role | Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Gay Men Will Marry Your Girlfriends | Garden Guy | CollegeHumor Originals | Short |
| 2012 | Charlie's Gayngels | Charlie | Brian Jordan Alvarez | Short |
| 2012 | You Are What I Want | Nelson Adams | Short | |
| 2014 | It's Just a Question | Frank | Short | |
| 2014 | For Auld Lang Syne | Matt | Short | |
| 2014–2016 | Go-Go Boy Interrupted | Eliot | Jimmy Fowlie | 8 episodes |
| 2015 | Ryan Gosling Responds to Haters | Zac Efron | Brian Jordan Alvarez | Short |
| 2016 | Unreleased Robert Durst Third Interview | Andrew Jarecki | Short | |
| 2016 | The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo | Caleb | 5 episodes; also director, writer, producer, and editor | |
| 2016 | Neonate Fest | Shane Lucas | Funny or Die | Episode: "Vape Battle of the Century" |
| 2016 | JoJoHead | CW Seed | Episode: "Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time" | |
| 2016 | Made in China | Emil | Ken Kirby | Web series pilot |
| 2017 | Catching a Break | Ray | Episode: "All Day Adventure" | |
| 2017 | Stupid Idiots | Brian | Stephanie Koenig | Miniseries; 6 episodes[47] |
| 2019 | Lovelytheband: "Maybe, I'm Afraid" | Brian | Music video | |
| 2019 | Matt and Dan | Bartholemew | Matt & Dan | Episode: "Deal Breaker" web series |
| 2019 | Stellar People | Antares | Unreleased web series | |
| 2022 | Superorganism: "Teenager" | Dancer | Verdigris Management | Music video |
| Organization | Year | Category | Nominated work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gotham Awards | 2016 | Breakthrough Series – Short Form | The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo | Nominated | [48] |
| Independent Spirit Awards | 2025 | Best New Scripted Series | English Teacher | Pending | [49] |
| Best Lead Performance in a New Scripted Series | Pending |
Brian was born in NYC, then moved at age five to the sticks of Tennessee where he grew up. He then left Tennessee to go to high school at North Carolina School of the Arts, followed by college at University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, where he got his BFA. He's been making movies and acting since he was a kid.