Noah Centineo is more than an internet boyfriend. The last six years of his career have demonstrated that.
After making audiences swoon in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Centineo has crafted a reputable career even beyond his heartthrob status. With three known projects on the way in 2025, Centineo’s new year is going to be filled with a variety of roles, each more different than the next.
The 28-year-old actor will be returning as the beloved jock Peter Kavinsky in Season 2 of XO, Kitty, which hits Netflix on Jan. 16. Two weeks after that, on Jan. 30, the second season of The Recruit, which Centineo executive produces and stars in as a CIA lawyer, debuts on the streamer. The trailer for A24’s harrowing drama Warfare, which boasts a cast of fellow internet boyfriends like The Bear’s Will Poulter, Riverdale’s Charles Melton and Stranger Things’s Joseph Quinn, was released on Dec. 16. Centineo will appear in that too.
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While he’s moved beyond his heartthrob beginnings, those roles helped Centineo skyrocket to social media fame. The Fosters alum, who moved from Miami to Los Angeles at 15, ruled the internet in 2018, after To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before premiered on Netflix. At one point, Centineo, who’s often been compared to a young Mark Ruffalo, had jumped from 300,000 to 11 million Instagram followers in less than 48 hours. The Perfect Date and Sierra Burgess Is a Loser star was immediately profiled by publications like the the New York Times, W Magazine and Vulture. Vox called him “a hot guy who is reliably nice,” while the Cut dubbed him a “full-on cultural obsession.”
“I had no problem being an ‘internet boyfriend,’ Centineo told Netflix’s Tudum. “It was a really incredible time of my life to have done something that impacted so many different people across the planet.”
Noah Centineo and Anna Cathcart in Season 2 of XO, Kitty. (Park Young-Sol/Netflix © 2024)
In 2022, the year he launched his company, Arkhum Productions, and played DC superhero Atom Smasher in the Dwayne Johnson-led blockbuster Black Adam, Centineo starred in Netflix’s spy thriller series The Recruit. The actor leads the series as Owen Hendricks, a rookie CIA lawyer who becomes embroiled in the world of perilous international espionage. In their debut week, the show’s first two episodes nabbed the No. 2 and No. 6 spots on Samba TV’s Weekly Top Streaming Programs, the Wrap reported. It was renewed for Season 2 in January 2023.
Centineo likens his tenure as a young Hollywood heartthrob to his junior and senior years of college, so to speak. The Recruit is post-grad.
“I often think of The Fosters as my first two years of college, and To All the Boys and Sierra Burgess and all the things with Netflix as the next two years, and now I’ve graduated,” he told Men’s Health in 2022. “I’ve always felt like The Recruit was something that I couldn’t wait to do, but really I just had to slowly grow into it.”
Noah Centineo and Kaylah Zander in Season 2 of The Recruit. (Courtesy of Netflix)
Unlike his previous roles, The Recruit represented a new beginning for Centineo, who chose to bring the script, by Alexi Hawley, to Netflix. The actor played a large role in getting the series off the ground. Centineo told the Hollywood Reporter in 2023 that the project was a result of doing “what feels right and what feels fun.” But becoming an action star wasn’t intentional — the show just “happened to be [an] action, spy genre through an interesting lens.”
“The plan was not to just deviate and go to action,” he said. “I feel like I’m very fortunate to have the opportunity to sit back and decide what to do — ’cause before, you’re just auditioning and auditioning, and you’ll take whatever you can get. Now that I have a bit of time and the luxury of sitting back and choosing what we do next, it’s really just about like what I react to.”
Centineo has officially ushered in a new era. In the six years since he was launched into Hollywood stardom, the actor, who is featured in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 List for 2025, has survived the ebbs and flows of the industry and managed to find continued success. With XO, Kitty, The Recruit and Warfare — projects in three distinct genres — coming out in 2025, Centineo, who’s also teased a forthcoming film with his Arkhum Productions, is continuing to demonstrate his range as both an actor and producer. Don’t expect him to stop anytime soon.
