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The newcomer is the indie lead on everyone’s lips this spring thanks to progressive study of sex work, Sebastian.
Ruaridh wears trousers TOM FORD, shoes SIMONE ROCHA
Words ANDREW WRIGHT
Ruaridh Mollica really is a fan of recreational activities. It started in childhood. “The weirdest phase I had was gumball machines,” he tells me. “I’d build gumball machines out of Lego that would actually work.” Some interests he’s remained tethered to, but others, like the gumball epoch, were fleeting. At one stage, he was also manufacturing functional duct tape wallets from his bedroom. He thinks he produced around 100. “That was a mad phase,” the Italian-born, Scotland-raised actor laughs.
Mollica’s childhood in Edinburgh housed more conventional pastimes too, including dance, skateboarding, and graffiti art. He also honed his now-professionalised flair for acting through the city’s Strange Town Youth Theatre and a cluster of film and TV roles (Sunshine on Leith, Case Histories). Computing science was the original career plan, though. He has a degree to prove it but re-routed after graduating when a turn in Scottish BAFTA-winning queer short Too Rough made him realise he was happiest deploying his talents onscreen, rather than sitting in front of one.
Ruaridh wears full look SIMONE ROCHA
It’s working out well for him so far, with said aptitude quickly turning heads around the world thanks to appearances in HBO’s 2024 blockbuster-making satire The Franchise and his debut lead feature role in piercing sex work drama Sebastian. “It’s quite a scary, vulnerable film,” he tells me, of the latter, the subject of our chat at a canal-side East-London breakfast spot, at 8.30 am, the Monday after St Patrick’s Day weekend. The 25-year-old’s running late but not owing to a missed alarm after a heavy Saturday celebrating his Celtic cousins – he dropped his razor down the toilet. He hastens inside, buoyant in a Toy Story 2-emblazoned t-shirt and vintage Gucci loafers. “I didn’t drop my breakfast down the toilet,” he reassures me, as he opts for just a coffee and an iced one at that. “Let’s pretend it’s not eight degrees,” he declares, “but 18 degrees.” Mollica’s a glass-half-full kind of guy, offsetting his reverence for his craft with a magnetic exuberance at the people and fixtures of daily life. “Who came out of the womb first?” he exclaims when I later disclose that, like him, I’m a twin.
In fairness, he’s got a lot to be enthusiastic about just now. Sebastian is working its way into cinemas internationally, already out in Poland and weeks shy of its UK and Irish arrival, when we sit down. Director Mikko Mäkelä’s sparse, charged second feature follows Max, a young magazine journalist who, while writing an ostensibly fictional account of sex work, immerses himself in the occupation for research. The Sundance hit looks set to be one of the international indie highlights of the year, with Mollica’s performance, delivered with subtlety, its driving force.
It means he’s very much stepping into the industry's foreground, so much so that someone recognised him in public for the first time recently, in Islington pub The Scolt Head, to be specific. “This guy was like, ‘Are you the guy in Sebastian?’ I was like, ‘What are the odds?’” It turned out it was the best friend of the film’s sound designer. “But, I was like, ‘It still counts?’” he smiles. False starts or not, fan encounters are a reality that will likely soon figure in his life, but one he’s confronting with poise. “It’s a weird thing. Acting’s one of the few jobs where that just happens as your work gets popular.” He’s spoken to later-stage-career colleagues, who reassured him – “Not much changes, other than a few people might say hi to you in the pub.”
If his face wasn’t already familiar, from The Franchise or a smattering of smaller TV credits (Witness Number 3, Red Rose, Sexy Beast), you might know him as a friendly face spritzing you with fragrances in Oxford Street’s Selfridges. After transplanting himself to London to pursue acting, in 2022, a job on one of the department store’s concessions paid his bills. “I would smell so loud,” he laughs. “It was like you could hear it. Patchouli, bergamot, roses – all of them together.” He wasn’t partial to the retail life, but thankfully, Sebastian soon arrived to accompany his acclimatisation to the rudiments of London residency. “You have to build an entire foundation here and figure that out,” he says. “And you still don’t even know how to get the bloody Circle Line.”
Ruaridh wears cardigan LOUIS VUITTON
He was attached to Sebastian a year before filming began, with Mäkelä even rewriting Max as a Scottish arrival in London, to further tune their affinity. It meant that much of their life, during development and shooting, was lived in parallel. “Max was figuring his life out. He had gone to UCL, to do a master’s.” Mollica had just declined one at the university in favour of acting. His first impression of Max was his passion for literature. “I was really obsessed with it at that time as well. The first thing I picked up on was, ‘Wow, this guy loves to read. He loves art. And I really noticed his sacrifice and dedication to creating art. And he’s also a bit reckless.” There were learning curves further from his own reality in embodying Max, too, including a requirement to get his head around French to match his character’s fluency in the language. Mollica does speak Italian, but required guidance from Mäkelä to nail its fellow romance language, tripping up on the nuances between a Belgian and French native’s approach, because they were filming in Antwerp. “But I was like, ‘Well, Max isn’t actually French,” he laughs. “There’s probably a little bit of wiggle room here.”
Thematic details also proved eye-opening, namely the intricacies of sex work and its prevalence, especially in London’s queer scene. “Sex work was always something that I supported,” he says. In contrast to the often tragic framing the occupation has suffered in fictional representations, Sebastian reflects the many, particularly in the digital age, who gravitate towards it with agency as simply another option for acquiring income, rather than a furtive last resort. “Watching interviews and hearing people talk about their work in a way where they’re happy and proud of it and their family knew and were supportive, that was amazing,” he says. “There’s just so many sad sex worker stories [in fiction] that I’m not surprise that a lot of people think how they do about it.”
Ruaridh wears full look LOUIS VUITTON, rings CARTIER
Mollica’s comfortability on the subject didn’t eclipse his nerves at his mum watching him have sex – a lot of it and in diverse settings – when she came to one of the film’s screenings, however. “She definitely didn’t watch the full sex party scene,” he admits, of one night when Max attends a chemsex gathering of young lawyers. “It is probably just strange to see your child in that environment.” Moments with septuagenarian client Nicholas, played by veteran Australian actor Jonathan Hyde (Richie Rich, Titanic, Jumanji) didn’t unsettle her, though. “She loved Jonathan Hyde,” he says. “What’s interesting is that not only is there a stereotype about sex work, but also about people who use sex workers. They don’t have to e some weird creep, it can be just regular people.” In the case of Nicholas, a sensitive, opera-loving retired academic, his relationship with Max opened dialogue on generational queer experiences – namely, the purging of freedom the AIDS crisis and entrenched homophobia imposed on his generation of queer men. “There’s a safety in hiring Max for him.”
Working with Hyde made for one of Mollica’s most impactful on-set collaborations. “I want to be him when I grow up,” he laughs. It’s just another example of the compass his craft’s providing him with as he eases into adulthood, orientating him in a way his teenage years didn’t. “I still don’t really know who I am,” he admits, “but back then, I had no idea who I was.” As a child, he would flit between friendship groups at school. “I was really reclusive, but I masked it in a random, bubbly energy.” His social surroundings stabilised when his focus was consumed by skating. “I had a little group. I’d spend every day just out until the early hours.”
Ruardih wears full look TOM FORD
Through it all, he was flanked by his twin sister, who now also joins him in The Big Smoke, pursuing songwriting after studying for a business degree. “I think I’ve inspired her to pursue her creative dreams as well.” As for his own, winning a solo Scottish BAFTA is top of the list. “That’s a symbol of having done something good in my home, that people respect.”
In the immediate future, he wants to get better at chess. “I decided to write a chess study programme for [the week], like the gym,” he grins. The game, which he picked up in COVID, is his present-day obsession – alongside its strategy-led cousins go and backgammon and jewellery-making under the tutelage of his flatmate. “Chess tickles the problem-solving, computing-science part of my brain.” And it looks like it’s here to stay. “I feel like I’m getting to a point where I’m actually obsessed with things, and we’re gonna stay obsessed with them.” However, “I’m starting way too late to become, you know, a grandmaster.” He is playing chess tonight with friends, though.
Regarding his acting progression, he’s right on schedule, with rumours swirling that he'll be joining upcoming Marvel superhero series Vision in the weeks following our chat. Although he is running late for his Man About Town shoot as we run over. He doesn’t let it throw him off course, though, as he departs to the nearby studio and subsequently for a dip in the local marshes for shots head-to-toe in Thom Browne. “This has been amazing,” he beams. “You should definitely give chess a whirl.”
Sebastian is out in UK and Irish cinemas now
Photography by Matt Easton
Styling by Martin Metcalf
Grooming by Petra Sellge at The Wall Group
Editor Andrew Wright
Art Director Michael Morton
Fashion Director Luke Day
Production Director Lola Randall
Junior Art Director Natasha Lesiakowska
Photography Assistant Harry Burner
Styling Assistant Olivia Caldwell
Special Thanks to Mill Row Club
