Hulu has officially set the internet humming by casting rising actor Jack Alldridge in the lead role of its upcoming pilot Foster Dade, an adaptation of Nash Jenkins’ moody and irresistibly queer-coded novel Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos.
It is the kind of casting announcement that immediately shifts a project from “interesting” to “add to watchlist right now,” and once fans saw the name Matt Bomer attached as well the excitement level went straight through the roof.
The story centers on Foster Dade, a lonely, anxious transfer student who arrives at an elite East Coast boarding school in 2008 and tumbles headfirst into a world of intoxicating privilege, messy relationships, and a scandal that will haunt the school for years.
In the novel that inspired the show, Foster is fragile, curious, determined to reinvent himself, and constantly orbiting questions of belonging, identity, sexuality, and the pressure to fit a shape cut out for someone else entirely.
That complicated emotional terrain makes Alldridge an especially intriguing pick because the Deadline article announcing his casting stressed how raw and layered the role will need to be.
Fans have already begun imagining what the series might look like with Alldridge navigating blog posts, playlists, heartbreak, and a slow slide into a very dark situation.
But then there is Matt Bomer, stepping into the role of Alex Tierney, the school’s brilliant, eccentric and dangerously charismatic literature teacher.
Producers have already described Tierney as “swoony,” the kind of teacher students fall half in love with simply because he treats books like religion and emotions like poetry.
They also made it clear that he becomes entangled in the school’s unfolding scandal, a detail that has sent queer audiences into speculation overdrive.
Because if there is one thing Bomer does beautifully it is morally complex men caught between desire, duty, vulnerability and the messy tangle of human attachment.
Pairing a newcomer like Alldridge with a seasoned, openly gay actor like Bomer suggests Hulu is aiming for something deeper and darker than a typical YA boarding school story.
The original novel blends mystery with a forensic look at class, masculinity, sexuality and the pressure cooker of early adulthood, and the TV version seems poised to honor that tone.
With filming underway in New York this week the grind of behind-the-scenes leaks, character teases and early fandom theories is guaranteed to begin soon.
And if the adaptation leans into the emotional sharpness and queer subtext of the source material Foster Dade could easily become one of Hulu’s most talked-about new dramas of the year.
So for now we watch, we wait, and we let our imaginations run wild about just how messy, sexy and scandalous this boarding-school mystery might become under the combined gaze of Jack Alldridge and Matt Bomer.
And honestly, with that casting, who could blame us.
📷 IG: @ jackalldridge / mattbomer