Avan Jogia says he is finally choosing parts that let him control the way a story feels, not just the way he appears in it. The 34-year-old actor said his recent work, including Backrooms and 56 Days, reflects a shift toward projects that draw in both performer and audience.
The timing matters because Backrooms released Friday, putting Jogia back in front of viewers just as he is describing the kind of screen work he wants next. He said he is looking for roles that not only immerse him but also the audience, a goal that fits the more world-building, psychological projects he has taken on in recent months.
Jogia got his start in Hollywood on Nickelodeon’s Victorious and later appeared on the teen drama Twisted, but he now talks about that stretch of his life with more distance than nostalgia. He said he started talking about pursuing entertainment when he was six, and that his parents held off as best they could until he was 12, when they finally took him to an acting class.
From there, the work came quickly. After starting classes, he booked a lot of commercials, then took narrative roles in Vancouver, Canada, before dropping out of high school and driving down to California. He said he lived in a trailer behind someone’s house for $300 in the valley and got Victorious after moving there.
That early path still shapes the way he talks about the business. Jogia described his youth career as being spat out of the kids’ television program machine, saying, “It spit me out in my late teens, early ’20s.” He added that after 20 years of making stuff, he may be arriving at what his boundaries are, and that he deserves to decide how he wants to make and what he wants to make.
That is the friction in his career now: he says he wants full control to navigate where he wants this ship to go, but the system that made him visible first trained him to be useful, polished and available to a generation of viewers. “I really liked the concept of being able to be seen as a professional and be taken seriously and also to be able to professionally play,” he said, framing the work as craft rather than brand.
Jogia’s recent projects suggest he is testing that idea in public. He starred opposite Dove Cameron earlier this year in the Prime Video romantic psychological thriller 56 Days, and his work on Kane Parsons’ Backrooms points to a lane that is less about teen stardom than atmosphere, control and audience immersion. The next open question is what he chooses when the spotlight moves again, including the new movie he is developing with Halsey, a project he has not yet detailed publicly.
