Drew Starkey Says He Has a “Little Bit of Troy Bolton in Me” With Love for Acting and Basketball

Drew Starkey has had his own real-life High School Musical moment.

The actor, who rose to fame on the hit Netflix series Outer Banks, recently told Dazed Magazine that he’s “got a little bit of Troy Bolton in me,” having had a love for basketball and acting growing up. The main character (played by Zac Efron) in the Disney Channel films played on the school’s basketball team for his father, who was also the head coach, but also realized that he had a passion for theater.

As for Starkey, he grew up playing basketball, as his dad is the head women’s basketball coach at Kent State University. However, he ultimately pursued his love for acting, attending college at Western Carolina University in North Carolina, where he double majored in English and theater performance.

“It’s like, you know, basketball was my first love. And then I was like, ‘No, Dad, I want to sing and dance, you know, I’m meant to be an actor,’” he said, before describing the feeling. “Sometimes you can hit a flow where it feels like this is what I’m meant to be doing, and it’s second nature. It’s unconscious in some way. And l feel like that happens, at least for me, very rarely, and striving for that is I think what makes it so addictive.” 

Starkey has become quite the heartthrob after finding success as Rafe Cameron on Outer Banks, which just released its fourth season. He’s also appeared in several other films over the years, but he next stars opposite Daniel Craig in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, adapted from William Burroughs’ novel.

Starkey previously told The Hollywood Reporter of delving into the world of Burroughs to find his character Eugene Allerton, as he waited for filming on Queer to begin, “It was a process of osmosis, in a way. It’s so rare that you get an opportunity to have four or five months of prep for something. And I think at times I felt like I was doing nothing. But I was just meditating on it.”

He added of his character, “He only reveals himself when he’s a counterpart to Lee (Craig), and that felt like his truest form and what he was afraid of. And so I think the real work started on day one [of filming with Craig].”