Tyler HOECHLIN

TYLER HOECHLIN IN NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 2016. T-SHIRT: 7 FOR ALL MANKIND. STYLING: VANESSA CHOW. GROOMING PRODUCTS: TOM FORD FOR MEN GROOMING COLLECTION, INCLUDING OIL-FREE DAILY MOISTURIZER. GROOMING: ENRICO MARIOTTI FOR THE LAND OF BARBERS. SPECIAL THANKS: SALT STUDIOS.

“I have to be honest. I think Periscope is the dawn of evil,” says Tyler Hoechlin of the app that lets you broadcast quotidian events live. “I can’t imagine doing it. At some point, you’re living life through a lens and not really experiencing it.” An actor who shuns the camera might seem as mythical as a werewolf, but you can’t blame the 28-year-old Corona, California native for being a bit leery of social media. He’s coming off four years of being chased by the shrieking fangirls of MTV’s hit show Teen Wolf, on which he starred as one of the lupine types. Now he’s poised for more grown-up attention as one of the stars of Richard Linklater‘s new film, Everybody Wants Some!!, a “spiritual sequel” to Dazed and Confused, which follows the hedonistic members of a college baseball team in Texas in 1980. “The characters definitely get into more debauchery than I was able to in college, which is nice,” Hoechlin says. The wardrobe, however, tested his comfort level. “My intimidation factor was wearing the short shorts,” he admits. “But weirdly, we all got into it. We were all at each others’ fittings, stealing stuff off the racks. It really felt like 1980 when we got out there.”

Hoechlin plays McReynolds, the confident team captain who likes the bottle and the blonds. The actor wanted to be a pro ball player himself as a student until an injury forced a detour. He landed Teen Wolf months later and was cast in Everybody Wants Some!! weeks after he left that show in 2014. Next: the military thriller Stratton, in which he plays opposite Dominic Cooper as his special-ops partner. Hoechlin was able to put his athleticism to work in scuba and military sequences. Partially shot in Southern Italy last summer during an intense heat wave, it required him to race up and down stairs for the better part of a day while wearing 40 pounds of gear. “That was an interesting attempt to stay alive and upright,” he says. “But it’s what I love about the business: to go home exhausted but feel like you’ve given it everything you have. It makes it easier to eat the pizza and drink the wine and not feel too guilty about it.”