BUT HE PLAYS ONE ON TV. THE ACTOR FROM YOUNGER AND THE FOLLOWING SHOWS OFF HIS REAL INK.

Italian-Americans fit into two stereotypes: Italians from New Jersey, whose mother can cook better than yours; and Italians from the rest of the country (their mothers also cook better than yours). Nicolo Luigi Tortorella is one of the latter, born and raised in the northern suburbs of Chicago.

In my household, people were always cooking, he remembers. Sunday dinner wasnt a tradition his family could easily give up when Tortorella moved to Hollywood, his parents soon followed.

My parents moved out to LA when I was 22 and both got their medical [marijuana] cards, Tortorella said.

Even though Mr. and Mrs. Tortorella didnt smoke pot while their sons were growing up, they found themselves living in Los Angeles with 40 plants growing in their backyard. They sold the green to dispensaries and their booming business became a family affair. There was one point where its me, my brother, my brothers girlfriend, and my parents all sitting around this big dining room table at their house clipping all the fucking weed, Tortorella says.

While his parents cultivated a new hobby, Tortorella starred in Scream 4 and The Following. Now he plays Josh, a tattoo artist on TV Lands Younger alongside the Goodfellas mistress Debi Mazar, a woman he calls incredible.

Though the actor is significantly tattooed in real life, his role calls for even more ink. [The fake tattoos] make me feel a little dirty, he says, because theyre not real.

Mike Maddi, a former makeup artist for Saturday Night Live, spends about 45 minutes applying the fake sleeves. They are really fucking annoying to take off, Tortorella says. It takes about two long hours of scrubbing to fully remove the ink.

Tortorella is sure he would never get 90 percent of the tattoos his character Josh has, but he plans for at least one more major piece: I want to get a lion and a cub for my Ma. Shortly after this issue goes to print we are hooking the actor up with that tattoo from Po Po.

His right arm is ink free, I think Im going to leave it like that. On his left bicep is a portrait tattoo of his grandfather, a World War II veteran, done by Kat Von D.

The conversation with Tortorella always seems to return to family. He didnt have the traditional upbringing we saw on 90s sitcoms (thanks to his uncle, for instance, he spent the bulk of fifth grade as an Italian boy struggling to go vegan), which is likely the reason his social ideals are very open.

I was dating these two girls in Dallas, who were dating each other, he says. They were always dyeing their hair crazy colors. This led to him dyeing his hair 20 different colors in 2015. Being able to share hair dye aside, joining a girl-on-girl relationship is fucking awesome, he reports.

Inked across his collarbone is the phrase not this. not that. beyond definition. He says, We as a culture spend so much time labeling everybody and everything. But we are all one. [Sexual fluidity and gender fluidity] is something I live by, stand by, and represent.

His Younger characters love life is also unusual. Broadway actress Sutton Foster plays Liza, a 40-year-old housewife pretending to be a 20-something book editor in Manhattan. As their relationship evolves, Josh, a tattoo artist living in Brooklyn learns her real age. Naturally, the news angers him.

If the actor faced Joshs situation in real life, hed react similarly. It doesnt matter to me. Why the fuck [would you] lie? Tortorella asks. The sexiest thing is full commitment to who you are and what you stand for.

Tortorella will celebrate one-year alcohol-free on January 13, I went like 10 solid years of boozing, he says. I was just over it.

If Im going to do something, Im going to do it in full. That go-hard-or-go-home attitude also applies to his future tattoos. Im at a point where Im going to continue to get tattooed and be covered in a couple of years, Tortorella says, or Im going to flat-out stop.

Tortorella reveals his abs and the tattoo niconiconico by Max Hanson (Dr. Woos apprentice) that rests at the bottom of his chiseled-out V. Its kind of my brand these days, he says of the ink. Around his neck a long necklace holds 300-year-old iron charms: one Viking cross and two Viking luminaries of the moon that were found in a treasure chest off the coast of Florida.

Tortorellas parents are now living in Florida and working to obtain medical cards in the Sunshine State. Tortorella calls Brooklyn home, but New York City is hardly his favorite city. Neither is his hometown of Chicago. Tortorellas favorite city is LA. According to him, the food is hands-down better quality.

Some Italian.

Source: Inked Mag