…Friendships and relationships are everything and will travel with you if you nurture them. Now in my mid-forties, there are so many of us who have grown together over the course of my twenty plus years here. I feel it’s important to keep supportive people close and prioritize those relationships. Cut the fat of those who don’t have your best interest in mind. And lastly, read more books and get off social media 🙂 …
I had the pleasure of talking with Justin Sintic. To understand the actor, who recently stepped into HBO’s Euphoria, you have to understand the specific clash of worlds that built him. He was born in New Jersey, growing up in the small town of Glen Ridge, just a half-hour outside the sprawling shadow of Manhattan. His childhood was defined by a loud, echoing rhythm: the sound of a hockey puck smashing against a garage door.
“I was a hockey player,” Sintic recalls with a smile. “That is still probably my first love.” His parents split up when he was four, but both remained fiercely supportive figures in his life. His father, an accountant, was a constant presence at his games. His mother, who spent thirty years grinding in the New York City Garment District, offered him something entirely different: a backstage pass to the arts. Through her connections at major fashion labels, a young athlete was quietly introduced to the magic of the stage. “I had this athlete mindset, but I was also introduced to the beauty of the arts,” he says. “I fell in love with it, although I didn’t realize that until much later.”
That realization finally hit him during his college years at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. Sintic arrived with dreams of playing Division 1 hockey. When the coaching staff told the eighteen-year-old he needed to get bigger and faster, he spent time playing junior hockey, despite romanticizing the roster spot. But then, he met the late Crystal Brian, a professor who was building a brand-new theater program at the school. Sintic saw the writing on the wall for his hockey dreams and decided to try the stage instead. “It was a very small group of us, and I was hooked,” he admits. “I quickly decided that I wanted to explore this.”
He went all in, performing in every play the small theater company threw his way and even found his way on to the stage at the acclaimed Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, CT. “I can only describe the feeling of being on stage to the feeling of being on the ice. It just felt familiar.” After a failed audition to the NYU Master’s program at Tisch, he later decided to pursue his Master’s degree in Journalism, “I just fell in love with people’s stories and wanted to be a little more well rounded then just theater all the time.”
Shortly after that he left the nest and headed to Los Angeles, a city he had never been to before. “I had a duffle bag and a dream,” he says. Having little knowledge of the sprawling city, he just did what he knew best. He found his footing in small, dusty theaters and local ice rinks, bringing his hockey bag to the West Coast to find a community by playing in a men’s league twice a week. “I will cherish those experiences,” he notes of his early days. “The beers after the men’s league games with my buddies,” “as well, the late-night rehearsals and coffee shops with my actor friends.”
It was not always a romantic journey, though. He admits there was a long period where the harsh business side of the industry felt completely daunting and he lost his spark. He credits acclaimed acting coach Jocelyn Jones with helping him find it again by encouraging him to return to the simple things he loved as a kid. To get his creativity back, he sourced joy. “As a kid, I was always in the park,” he reflects. “I felt that as an adult, I needed to get back outside. Play sports, be in the community, get out of my head and into my body.”
All of those years of quiet preparation collided in a frantic twelve-hour window when he was cast as Fred in the highly anticipated third season of Euphoria. Production was dealing with sudden changes and needed someone immediately. Sintic recorded an audition tape in under an hour and was on set half a day later. “I had no time to prepare, and I didn’t know much about the character,” he says. He felt a massive weight of responsibility because of the show’s intense global fanbase. Yet, stepping onto creator Sam Levinson’s set felt less like a pressure cooker and more like arriving at an artistic home. “It is literally a dream for an actor,” he says. “You get this playground where he allows you to explore all these different ideas in the moment during scenes.”
His character on the show, Fred, is a finance guy — Sintic says, “to me, a man whose worth revolves around money, status, and power.” It is a sharp contrast to Sintic, who insists he is driven purely by stories, relationships, and friendships. “I didn’t want to judge that,” he explains. “I just wanted to explore it.”
Now in his mid-forties, looking back at a steady, hard-earned resume that includes plenty of theater and television shows such as High Potential and Jessica Jones, Sintic remains incredibly grounded. “It’s all one big gigantic lesson. To me, that’s life. Acting is hard, and life is hard,” Sintic reflects. “The failure is essential in order to grow.”
Yitzi: Justin, it is so nice to meet you. Before we dive deep and talk about your work, our readers would love to learn about your personal origin story. Can you share the story of your childhood, how you grew up, and the seeds and genesis for all the amazing work that has come since then?
Justin: The short version is, I was born in New Jersey. I grew up about 30 minutes outside of Manhattan in a small town called Glen Ridge. I am the son of a mother who worked in fashion, in the Garment District in New York City for 30 years, and a father who was an accountant. They were very hard-working role models. My father is no longer with us, but my mother paved the way for this career that I ended up choosing. She was influential in how I was raised. I was very into sports, specifically hockey. If I wasn’t shooting pucks and ruining our garage door, I was always in the park playing every sport — hockey, baseball, soccer, basketball(I was terrible), golf, pool, ping pong. You name it. My parents split when I was four, but my father stayed close by and was very supportive and loving and wanted to make sure he came to all of my games and be a fatherly presence.. But it was really my mom who got me into the arts. She introduced me to the theater when I was a kid. She was born in NYC and knew the importance of seeing plays and being involved in the arts, even if all I cared about was sports. So, I had this athlete mindset, but I was also introduced to the beauty of the arts and the stage. I fell in love with it, but didn’t realize that until much later. That was my inception into everything. But I had two very loving parents who supported anything I did.
Yitzi: That’s great. You are a great storyteller, Justin. Speaking of stories, can you share how you first entered the entertainment industry? Tell us about your first breaks and entries.
Justin: I went to college in Connecticut, a liberal arts school called Quinnipiac University. I didn’t know I wanted to be an actor at that time; I wanted to play hockey and they were this emerging Division 1 program. That dream died quickly but at the same time, I met this incredible woman named Crystal Brian. She is unfortunately no longer with us, but she was a professor at UCLA who moved her family closer to New York City and ended up taking a job at Quinnipiac to start a theater program. I decided I wanted to give it a try. It was this very small group of us, we would read plays and put them up in this little theater that had no more than 30 seats. I loved it and the community of creatives that dived in. After a few plays, my Dad, who was the accountant for some people in the entertainment industry in New York City, set me up with a meeting with an agency who was willing to meet me. I think I was 20 or 21, and they signed me to a commercial contract and started sending me out on commercial auditions. So I would take the train from New Haven, Connecticut down to New York and I ended up landing the first commercial audition I went out on. I thought, man this is easy. I definitely didn’t foresee all of the rejection that was to come!
Yitzi: Looking back over your career, you probably have some amazing encounters and anecdotes. It might be hard to single them out, but can you share with our readers one or two stories that stand out from your career?
Well, one funny one is that I worked in hospitality for fifteen years, waiting tables in two different restaurants during that time. I took care of a lot of exciting people in those days, one of which was Mary Vernieu who is the head and founder of Betty Mae Casting and I remember for the longest time, I never knew she was a casting director. She was just this really cool, kind woman who loved the neighborhood and coming into the restaurant. And fifteen years later, she ended up casting me in Euphoria. That was kind of a full circle moment.
Yitzi: What has been the most challenging project or role you have taken on so far, and why?
Justin: I think Euphoria was equally challenging as it was entirely in flow. I’m honored to be part of the world that Sam created and with that comes great responsibility. To Sam. To the cast — who for three seasons, have emptied their guts into these characters. To the entire production — HBO, the producers, the crew. I recognize the importance of it all. So there are challenges that come with all of that. I wanted to make sure I delivered. I ended up being cast late into the production so there wasn’t a whole lot of time to dig deep into who Fred was before I had to be on set, which normally would absolutely terrify me. But I mention it all being in flow and that’s because from the minute I showed up to the minute I left, it all just felt very right. That’s the only way I can describe it. The working environment was so healthy. Sam and his wife Ashely who produces, created this magical workplace where everyone was so supportive. Jacob was incredible to work with and so generous on and off camera. Jessica Blair Herman, who plays my wife Heather, was a dream scene partner. And Sydney is a force, whose commitment is unparalleled.
Yitzi: Let’s talk about Euphoria. Euphoria has been one of the most popular shows in the past seven years and has produced stars one after the other. Every single person is a star now. What do you think it is that made it such a phenomenon?
Justin: I think it’s a combination of an incredible creator and showrunner in Sam Levinson, who writes for actors, and whose writing holds a mirror up to society and opens a dialogue. Combined with a cast whose talent is through the roof and who have poured their heart and souls into these characters and stories. And Marcell Rev’s cinematography is mind blowing.
Yitzi: How would you compare and contrast your personal character, Justin, with Fred, the character you play? How are you similar and how are you different?
Justin: These are the exact questions I ask myself when I play characters. What are the ways the character is like me? How is the character different? To me, Fred is a finance guy who went to an Ivy League or East Coast school. He and his wife, Heather moved out West after doing really well for themselves, and in his world, money means power and status. That’s very different from me but I know a lot of these guys growing up just outside of New York City. I think there is an earnestness to Fred that is similar to me, I think he wants to see the good in Nate Jacobs without knowing him entirely that well, which is very relatable to me. There is an allure about Nate and Cassie that I think Fred is drawn to because they are new to the neighborhood and portray wealth and beauty. Everything is very shiny and I just wanted to really make sure I personally, didn’t judge that about Fred. I am looking for ways to make him a real person. For a lot of that, I will bring in the parts of myself. What is the wound this guy is trying to heal? Does he not feel like he’s enough without money? I can relate to that. So I think about every character having a void inside that they need to fill. Without all of these shiny objects, he feels like a nobody and if he feels like a nobody, then he deems himself a failure. Have I ever felt like a failure? Sure. So then he becomes more relatable to me when I think about those parts of myself. So I asked myself a lot of these questions about Fred and then tried to relate them to my own life. It’s the marrying, if you will, of Fred and Justin.
Yitzi: This is our signature question. Justin, you have been blessed with a lot of success, and you must have learned a lot from your experiences. Looking back from when you first started in the entertainment industry, can you share five things that you have learned over the years that would have been nice to know in the beginning?
Justin: The first thing that comes to mind is that rejection is essential. Looking back, I have learned more from not getting what I think I wanted than I have from “success” or whatever that is.
The second would be that everyone has an opinion and that is their free will. So don’t get too wrapped up in what other people think of you. Easier said than done, but it’s useless at the end of the day. My life and my creativity opened up when I cared less about pleasing someone.
The third thing is that joy outside of acting is essential. We touched upon it, but having plenty to do in your life outside of the industry informs your life as an actor. Less thinking, more living.
The fourth thing would be that friendships and relationships are everything and will travel with you if you nurture them. Now in my mid-forties, there are so many of us who have grown together over the course of my twenty plus years here. I feel it’s important to keep supportive people close and prioritize those relationships. Cut the fat of those who don’t have your best interest in mind.
And lastly, read more books and get off social media 🙂
Yitzi: Wonderful. This is our final aspirational question. Justin, because of your amazing work and the platform that you have built, it is not an exaggeration to say that you are a person of enormous influence. If you could spread an idea or inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can inspire.
Justin: I think everyone is just trying to do the best they can with what they have. If I could spread a message to a wide array of people, I would echo the late, great Robin Williams and say, everyone you meet is going through something and you never really know what that is. So be gentle.
Yitzi: How can our readers watch Euphoria, how can they watch any of your work, and how can they support you in any possible way?
Justin: Thank you for that Yitzi. Euphoria is now streaming on HBO Max. And I can’t believe I am saying this but you can find me on social media at @justinsintic.
Yitzi: Justin, it has been amazing meeting you. I wish you continued success and good health, and I hope we can do this again next year.
Justin: It has been such a pleasure. Thank you for spending this time with me. Lots of love right back to you, my friend.
Justin Sintic Talks Euphoria Season 3 Casting, High Potential, and the Future of His Career was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.