IT’S NOT EASY being a young man with an excess of feeling in 2025. (Arguably, it never has been.) Felix Mallard knows that. Marcus Baker, the loveable skateboarder-next-door with a nihilistic streak whom Mallard portrays on Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia, certainly knows that. Mallard took the responsibility of communicating his character’s ennui and struggles seriously, throwing the weight of his own feelings behind Marcus’. “I read the script, and I was like, ‘Oh, yeah. I’ve met a million guys like this’,” he says. “It felt important to do it right.”
Mallard is earnest and sharp; his intensity crackles. At 27, the Melbourne native and current LA resident is sitting on 3.9 million Instagram followers and a coveted Dior ambassadorship, having bolted down the foundations of a very promising acting career. When he sits down with Esquire, he’s just wrapped a day’s shooting in head-to-toe Dior in Sydney. The day after we speak, he will set off for Paris to sit front row at Dior’s latest men’s show, the first since Jonathan Anderson was named as the house’s creative director in June. Mallard is also bringing a first to the table: in July last year, he was tapped to be the first Australian ambassador for Dior fragrance and skincare, an appointment he describes as “surreal”, and this year was further made an ambassador for fashion.
In many ways, fashion and beauty are comfortable realms for him: Mallard started modelling at 14; the acting came later, with a six-episode stint on star-maker Neighbours. He then tumbled into roles on TV series, including a starring role playing a Harry Styles-esque rockstar in the sitcom Happy Together and, most recently, a breakout part on the hit sitcom Ginny & Georgia (the third season of which was released in June).
Mallard has received acclaim for adopting the American accent with a kind of preternatural ease – despite having been born in South Australia (his family moved to Victoria when he was a baby.) He sounds – and looks – just like a suburban American kid, baggy jeans trailing the sidewalk, slinging out lacklustre greetings to his family, a skateboard wedged under his arm. But this mastery didn’t come from nothing: Mallard considers his first few years in LA (he moved there in 2018) as an education, perfecting his accent by riding around in cabs and picking up on the drivers’ inflections. It corresponds to how Mallard approaches his life: studiously, curiously. “Treating [the accent] as a language, as a way of communicating, rather than as just something to put on, gives you a lot more room to be spontaneous, a lot more room to play and live and listen,” he says. “It lets me perform with a kind of freedom, to respond instead of just ‘act’.”
Accordingly, he often answers straightforward questions, (say, ‘Was the accent hard to get right?’) with sprawling, abstract reflections. Mallard was an academic, eager kid. He had a “crisis”, he says, at 14, when he was pent-up with lots of emotions and a desire to excel in school. If Mallard’s instinct was to overanalyse, acting was a salve. “I’ve always felt at home performing,” he says. He grew up playing music – guitar, bass, drums – and dancing. “Being on stage has always been quite a safe space. It’s always been something that’s made me feel like I’m at home, a way to process the world around me in a way that’s . . . fun.”
He projects a kind of happy-go-lucky charm, but it seems to be Mallard’s natural inclination to turn a mirror on his surroundings, and to interrogate his place in his industry and the world.
“You have to be present,” he says, of being on set. “And there’s a real death of ego that comes with that. There’s a death of overthinking, because you don’t have time. You have to just listen, and you have to process and you have to be honest. And that’s probably good for me.
“I probably stray a little too far into my head,” he admits. “What I really, really love about acting is that you can’t overthink. You certainly can overthink your prep, and you certainly can overthink coming to set. But once you’re between ‘action’ and ‘cut’, you have to let it all go.” Here, he catches himself. “I can intellectualise it till the cows come home,” he laughs. “But it’s just the most fun thing in the world.”
It’s what connects a lot of the things Mallard does, and loves: presence, a falling away from the rest of the world, a deep sense of flow. Acting, playing music, designing (he used to want to be a graphic designer) and, most recently, surfing. Growing up, Mallard was a theatre kid, a performer – not at all into sports until surfing came along five years ago. “You know, when you can only focus on the task in front of you is when I feel . . . ” He trails off. “I think most people feel like that’s what meditation is, right? What feels really safe.”
It’s been a helpful tool while finding a kind of comfort and peace amidst a volatile political environment, especially in LA. As we chat, ICE protests are happening across California, with LA residents turning out in force. Swathes of the city were razed in wildfires earlier this year; the Trump presidency continues to take novel, unprecedented turns. A confluence of factors has changed LA, says Mallard, into a very different place than when he arrived seven years ago. “I don’t think it’s controversial to say that, at least in [the US], things are very divided,” he says. “Things are very, very electric. Tensions are at an all-time high . . . [or] the highest they’ve been since Vietnam. And you can feel it atmospherically. When I came back in January, I was very angry. Anyone who lives in America and isn’t angry right now, I think, isn’t paying attention.”
Returning home to Australia provides what he feels is a certain peace, especially being back in Melbourne’s calm, dozy western suburbs. The first stop is for a strong coffee, naturally. “Coming back puts me in a nostalgic space,” he says. Summers here, when he can get them, are a sun-soaked rotation of beers, coffees and surfing sessions. And family and friends, of course. “Seeing my mates has always been very, very important to me. I’m realising that these relationships are as important as [those with] my family. With some people, you can just pick up where you left off with no judgment, no aspersions. It’s all love. I’m so lucky that I have that kind of love between my mates. It’s really, really special.”
Some of those mates are in a band with him, formed when they were all together in high school, called Enemies Alike. Back in January, they had an impromptu, last-minute reunion, and their loved ones came to watch them on stage together again. It felt instinctual, he says, playing together again. “Like muscle memory.”
Was it a bit chaotic? “Always.” Is that what makes it fun? “Big time. Having your friends come watch you play, even if they’re making fun of you, it’s the best feeling,” he laughs.
NOT THAT IT’S always easy, between living in LA, often being away shooting, and his complicated relationship with technology. “I’m not the best at staying in touch,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s hard.” He pauses. “A lot of this conversation, it’s just making me realise how much I can’t handle the world,” he says, laughing. “The world is intense.”
He presses on. “Maintaining those relationships is very difficult. I’m not the best at it, so to be able to come home and know that I have people who are always gonna be in my corner, who don’t really care whether it’s been a year or two or three . . .” Then comes the instinct to widen the lens, to situate himself in a much larger tide. “We’ve never really had these things in our pockets that connect us so deeply and keep us addicted, you know? I really struggle with it. Every day I go, ‘I need to get a dumb phone’. I’m trying to keep boundaries where I can, but they’re always trying to get you.
“That’s a long way of saying that I struggle to text people back,” he smiles.
One way he maintains his boundaries is through an insistence on privacy. He politely declines to talk about his dating life. “It’s a sense of protecting my soul a little bit and protecting how I wanna show up professionally and who I am personally. And being able to keep a really strong boundary around that has done wonders for my mental health.” He does love love stories, though. “I think I’m a hopeless romantic. I really am a sucker for it. If it’s a love story, I’m in. I’m invested.”
He doesn’t have TikTok – again, he insists, “I think privacy is really important.” And despite the rabidity of the Ginny & Georgia online fandom (long story short: young women and teen girls really love Marcus Baker), he’s never had any wild fan encounters.
Mallard took on the role of Marcus in 2021, and the show quickly built up an ardent fanbase. Upon the release of its latest (third) season, Ginny & Georgia shot straight to the top of the Netflix charts. It’s probably good that Mallard doesn’t have TikTok – one imagines it would be hard to stay sane if he were privy to the sheer volume of fan edits of his face from different angles (set to the tune of soaring strings or, equally romantically, a trending audio) that exist on the app.
Putting aside the heartthrob label (which he laughs off), Mallard has also, through his portrayal of Marcus, become a kind of accidental spokesperson for a more nuanced conception of masculinity. The source material is close to home.
“I think I’m a HOPELESS ROMANTIC. I really am a SUCKER for it. IF it’s a LOVE STORY, I’m in”
“I don’t think growing up is easy for anyone,” he says, when asked about his teenage years. “I was experiencing a lot of anxiety, a lot of pressure. I think I naturally threw that into wanting to perform, wanting to make meaning and make sense of a world that kinda really just does seem quite tragic and chaotic.” He takes a beat, gives a wry smile. “Depending on how pessimistic you’re feeling.”
It’s a fitting perspective to bring to Marcus, whose brooding charisma initially reads as typically teen-TV fare – damaged, roguish, loveable – but, over time, becomes something stranger and sadder.
On Ginny & Georgia, the characters’ mental-health struggles are as core to the plot as the external drama that unfolds around them in the idyllic, fictional Massachusetts town of Wellsbury. Marcus struggles to feel worthy of love, he struggles with addiction, and he struggles to be vulnerable with those closest to him.
And Mallard’s performance resists the neatness that’s often imposed on teenage boys on screen. The show lets him unravel without resolving him. “Because I didn’t really see much of that [resolution] growing up,” he says of the way he plays Marcus, as a contradictory jumble of flaws and redeeming qualities – fundamentally caring but self-destructive in his relationships, keen to love but afraid to do so. “I certainly think the way that you can effect change is by representing things on screen. If you can see an emotional journey.” Marcus is a vessel for a version of masculinity that’s still in negotiation, the kind that Mallard believes there isn’t enough of on screen.
Offscreen, too, he is aware of the tension between how men are seen and how they might want to be. And he’s realistic about how slow culture can be to catch up. “We’re all very guarded,” he says. “And we all size each other up in different ways.”
His challenging of traditional masculine norms plays out in the everyday. During the Esquire cover shoot, he says, he was considering how masculinity could play into the narrative being shaped through the images. “What story are we telling? How are we going to reflect these pieces that are quite structured and nuanced in their detail? It was fun to wear things that were challenging what’s expected of a man to wear, in a very subtle way.”
“I wanted to MAKE SENSE OF A WORLD that does just seem quite QUITE TRAGIC AND CHAOTIC”
His challenging of traditional masculine norms plays out in the everyday. During the Esquire cover shoot, he says, he was considering how masculinity could play into the narrative being shaped through the images. “What story are we telling? How are we going to reflect these pieces that are quite structured and nuanced in their detail? It was fun to wear things that were challenging what’s expected of a man to wear, in a very subtle way.”
Mallard’s rise comes at a time when many are craving a different kind of leading man: there’s no compromise on charisma, but it’s tempered with reflectiveness, softness. And it’s a quid pro quo: Mallard gains from it, as well. “I think that what we can do by just showing a young man struggle, and try and fail and try again, and really try and process his emotions . . . is a gift, honestly.”
Acting will continue to be his tether to presence. “When it’s done right, you can connect with people, and you can make other people feel less alone. And the duality of that – to be able to be creatively fulfilled and hopefully fulfil others or help others feel seen – is like a drug.”
The world is intense. Mallard knows that. But he also knows that being a young man with too many feelings and, importantly, the guts to express them, might be exactly what this moment calls for.
Mallard wears Dior Men wool cardigan, wool twill pants, mask and zipped boot; silver and black resin rings in the top image.
Photography: Georges Antoni
Styling & Editor-in-Chief: Grant Pearce
Fashion Assistant: Kailee Waller
Grooming: Daren Borthwick
Videographer: Jasper Karolewski
Producer: Rebecca Moore
