❝ A SHORT LEASH AND A SHORT FUSE DON’T MATCH. ❞
NAME: Hunter Lowell GENDER/PRONOUNS: Male, He/Him DATE OF BIRTH: October, 1st 1991 BIRTH PLACE: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania CURRENT RESIDENCE: Santa Monica Pier/Ocean Avenue OCCUPATION: Actor FACE CLAIM: Gregg Sulkin
BIOGRAPHY
trigger warnings: violence, death, mental health issues, drug use, lgbt+phobia
Growing up under the watch of Pastor Lowell was nothing short of a burden. The zealous preacher who was never at a loss for words or prayers to his flock of faithful was an entirely different man behind the closed doors of his home. Aloof, bitter, and extremely demanding, Roger Lowell never gave either his child, Hunter, or his wife, Karen, any rest in his pursuit of the sacred. With his holier-than-thou posture, Pastor Lowell was someone who had always attempted to control his household with an iron fist, often turning to arbitrary, severe punishments – which were more-often-than-not physical – when any one of his rules were infringed. Karen Lowell, on the other hand, was a great mother… Not that there was much she could do. But she would go as far as the short leashes Roger kept around their necks would allow, to give her child some semblance of what a normal childhood should have looked like.
That sweet, short-lasting illusion was quickly dismantled, though, after Karen died in an accident. At first, it was all heartbreak and fallen tears, misery shared in silence at the dinner table, between the two Lowell men. For a moment, it seemed as though the passing of Karen had brought the two closer together; another foolish illusion that, yet again, was rapidly dismantled. Pastor Lowell was quick to turn to his faith as a refuge, nose-diving into the word of the Almighty, thoroughly devoting himself to his services, and unsurprisingly falling back into his old habits. But Hunter found his own refuge, as well. The drama classes at school were a safe place where he could exude all his emotions without the fear of unjust judgment or punishments for his complicated feelings or for being who he was. There, he found a safe haven, a place to discover himself and grow, and soon enough, what started as a pastime became a passion. Unsurprisingly, those endeavors were all done stealthily as Pastor Lowell would never have approved of his son’s favored activity. Regardless of Roger’s stance, however, Hunter was wholeheartedly devoted to his acting, not only because he loved the feeling of going on stage and walking into someone else’s skin, but because the theater also helped him overcome the pain brought along by the loss of his mother and to navigate the turbulent years of adolescence.
Without Karen’s presence to ease the preacher man with her kind words and sweet gestures, Roger’s rules became more strict, his punishments became more relentless, and arguments between him and his son became more physical. However, as it usually happens with teenagers at the edge of their youth, the more rigid a parent’s constraints become, the stronger is their child’s willingness to rebel. Sneaking out soon became something he could do with his hands tied, missing services to hang out with his friends became a habit and, of course, heated arguments with his father subsequently became more usual than ever. But Hunter didn’t pay much mind to his father’s words, usually sneaking out through the window – a few cuts and bruises bruises decorating his youthful skin – right after having been sent to his bedroom to ponder and pray.
It wouldn’t be long until Hunter and Roger Lowell’s strained relationship hit rock-bottom. It took something simple as a kiss, shared between Hunter and another male, and accidentally witnessed by his father, for the Pastor to turn his son’s life in that house of God into something hellish. The strength Hunter had built through years of facing his father’s severity hadn’t prepared him for what occurred afterward, but the marks – both physical, and psychological – that he still carries, can attest to his survival instinct. Still, although he hadn’t been accustomed to receiving compliments from his father, being called “atrocious” and “a child of the devil” by a man who’d known him all his life definitely took a toll on him…
Gathering just the necessary – a couple of clean clothes, a photo of him and his mother, and the few hundred bucks he had saved – Hunter fled that same night. After crashing on some friends’s couches for while, not entirely certain of what to do, after all, he all he had was a high school diploma and about five hundred bucks to his name, Hunter decided to take a shot at his lifelong dream and hopped on a bus to Los Angeles. Bars and coffee houses were his main source of income for the first few months in the city of Angels until he finally found himself at the right place, at just the right time… Teen soaps were never his favored genre of entertainment, but he’d heard that those young actors had been making quite a lot of money from their thriller shows and romcoms, and so he figured acting on something you’re not particularly fond of is better than not acting at all, especially if it paid the bills and allowed him to live with a little more luxury than a lousy one-bedroom apartment with four roommates.
Although he had acted with a little more passion than the strictly necessary for that type of gig, Hunter had passed his audition to the lead role in a new CW drama with flying colors, and soon enough, his name became pretty important in the industry, headlining romcoms and teen-addressed thriller Netflix movies, having Hunter Lowell as part of the cast made anything pretty much an easy sell with the younger audiences. For a while, it was all wonders and excitement, expensive clothes, and fancy cars. But the amounts of zeros on his paychecks couldn’t afford what he was really passionate about. Hunter wanted projects he believed in, complex characters in complex storylines filled with emotion, passions, and fears. He enjoyed the money, of course, better than that, he needed it, but money had never been the reason he’d gone into acting…
Opting for more serious movies addressed at different audiences than what he was used to was a bold move which was not really well-received by his agent who, unsurprisingly, managed to pull some contractual strings to get Hunter back on the track he’d designed. With the million-dollar fines and compensations that would come, should he ditch the deal with his agent, there was no contractual way out for him. The heated arguments à la Roger Lowell that began to pop up, sometimes even escalating into physical brawls, were the obvious consequence, yet to no avail. In the end, Hunter would just end up leaving his office angry, or frustrated, or sad. A toxic combination of emotions that resounded back to his adolescence and awoke his dormant unresolved conflicts, which were better off silenced in some dark corner of his mind. His sexuality, his bitterness towards his father, the traumas of a childhood permeated by abuse, and the loss of his mother. All he had done all those past years was control those issues with some anti-depressants and eventual visits to a psychiatrist whenever he needed a refill for his stock. But with all those internal struggles emerging at full force and the frustration of being unable to take his career and his own life into whatever direction he wanted, his mental stability spiraled down a turbulent path.
Hunter had known alcohol and drugs from a young age, using both mostly out of spite for his father’s rigid stance towards them, but never before was he close to losing his grip when it came to those. Still, as nervous breakdowns began permeating his every night, when he would sit alone in his balcony and cry or punch at the walls for hours on end, became a thing of habit, he couldn’t help but seek the cheap, effortless refuge provided by drugs to ease his mind, more and more each time.
Until, one day, he was found unconscious at his home, the official diagnostic being that he had almost overdosed on his antidepressants, which of course, hadn’t been made public for the sake of his career, but was definitely speculated by many, especially after the news he had signed into rehab had leaked to the tabloids… There was no great damage to his career, especially since he’d made quite a quick recovery, returning home just two months after being admitted, smiling and waving sympathetically to the paparazzi who waited for his arrival just outside his apartment building. Some contracts were dropped here and there, but Hunter’s agent managed to maintain the most significant ones, subsequently managing to keep his short leash around his neck… Now, a few months after a scandal, a conflicted and frustrated Hunter finds himself at a crossroads, uncertain of who he is, who he wants to be, and which way to take to get there and to keep himself from spiraling again.
