Move Over, Netflix Heartthrobs! Nico Hiraga Is Here to Claim the Title

Growing up in San Francisco, Nico never felt like he fit in — that is, until he discovered skateboarding. "I was always kind of the odd one out," he told SSENCE during an October 2019 interview. "I went to a super bougie, preppy school. I always sagged my pants. Parents didn't like me. My mom would get pissed! So I was like, 'All right f*ck, I'm going to start skating." And since no one at his school was into skating, Nico found his own crowd.

According to Nico, his love of skating began after his cousins got him his first skateboard at the age of nine. By the age of 14, he'd earned his first sponsorship. "From that moment on, I just kind of leveled up, you know?" Nico explained to i-D in March 2020. "I tried to get better everyday. Get out of school, go skate. I wanted to be home schooled so I could skate more, but my parents weren't f*cking with that."

Though Nico still has dreams of being a pro skater, he found his way into the entertainment world after a skating injury, despite having no professional acting experience. "Skating was my main focus, but then I tore a ligament in my ankle. I was f*cked. I was out of the game," he told i-D. "When I was injured, I got a manager. I booked a film out in New York called Skate Kitchen. I got a very, very small role in that, but it was my first film ever. Then shortly after, I booked Booksmart. That's how I got into it. I was hung up on my ass on my couch like, 'What am I going to do?' But I started acting and it worked."

Booksmart opens with high school seniors celebrating their last day of school, and in the scene, Nico can be seen skating down a hallway while spraying a fire extinguisher. Nico's stunt was actually improvised on the spot, and he insisted on performing the stunt himself. "I'm pretty sure [director] Olivia [Wilde] was like, 'It'd be sick if you skated down the hall with the fire extinguisher.' I was like, 'OK, done. I'm so down,'" Nico told i-D. And when one of the film's stunt coordinators suggested using a stunt double, Nico put his foot down. "I was like, 'Excuse me, I'll do it better than a stunt double!'" he added. "And Olivia was stoked on it. She was pushing for that and she always told me that she really liked that shot."

Nico attributes his strong work ethic to his parents, with whom he's very close. He even got one of his dad's favorite Japanese phrases tattooed on his tricep. "He always told me this growing up: Nanakorobi yaoki. It means fall down seven times, stand up eight," Nico told SSENSE. And though he's tight with his father, Nico also considers himself a "Mama's boy, 100 percent." When Nico was feeling a bit directionless at age 20, it was his mom he turned to for advice.

"I went through a little hard spot of being like, 'I don't know what I'm doing. I'm living with my parents and I'm 20 years old. I feel like i should move out already because I don't want to cause them stress,'" he added. "I talked to my mom about it for a while, and she told me, 'You're always going to continue to grow. Don't stop, ever.' We were on a staircase when she was telling me all of this, so I wrote it down in my phone — reminder: staircase talk. I put the sun emojis because she said she pictures me as a glowing sun. I'm going to put that in my everyday life and I'm gonna be that glowing sun."

Just a quick look at Nico's Instagram page will tell you the actor isn't a fan of keeping his shirt on. However, it has nothing to do with vanity. As he told i-D, his mom called him Mowgli growing up (like the character from The Jungle Book) because he was constantly running around without a shirt. "I've become known for never wearing shirts," he explained to SSENSE. "I love a good cropped top. Johnny Depp in Nightmare on Elm Street, that fool looked sick. I love tank tops. Button-ups, but with no buttons on them. People think, 'Oh, he's just trying to show off his body,' or, 'This motherf*cker is tanned, all right, we get it.' But no, I hate shirts!"