November 24

Nicholas Galitzine in
"Handsome Devil" (2016)
 

Between a restaurant Thanksgiving meal (crab stuffed mushroom caps, salmon with asparagus, and flan for dessert – tradition was completely out the window) and a broadcast of a Washington Redskins NFL game, I paid a visit to my gay friends who live on a rushing creek that feeds into the Potomac River. They had just started watching a gay-themed Netflix movie titled “Handsome Devil,” which is an Irish film that screened at last year’s Toronto Film Festival. It was a somewhat formulaic coming-of-age and coming-out story that was better than any of us thought it might be, given the film's cheesy title. What was unforgettable, however, was the eye candy afforded by the star Nicholas Galitzine, who played a closeted rugby champ at a private all-male school.
 

During halftime of the Redskins game, I did a little research on Mr. Galitzine, and my eyebrows shot due north when I came upon the following:

Actor and musician Nicholas Galitzine was born in London on September 30, 1994. Of Russian ancestry, he is the son of Prince Dmitri Galitzine, scion of one of the oldest and largest families from the Russian aristocracy. They escaped from Russia during the Red Terror in the 1920s and fled to England. Among the young actor’s ancestors is Herald II (1022-1066), the last Saxon King of England, whose daughter was married to Vladimir Monomach, the Great Prince of Kiev (Ukraine). Nicholas is also descended from the Grand Dukes of Lithuania as well as the Viking King Rurik, who invaded Russia in the ninth century. Not to mention Prince Nicholas Galitzine (1850-1925), the last tsarist Prime Minister of Imperial Russia, who is his namesake.

Wow. A princely pedigree, acting talent and killer looks. Those eyes (and lips)! He’s getting a lot of work for someone who just turned 23, and he stars alongside Anjelica Huston in the upcoming feature film “Watcher in the Woods”. Stay tuned.