Why We Love Tyler in ‘Wednesday’
In addition to Jenna Ortega’s title character in Wednesday, her friend Tyler was central to the success of the Netflix show’s first season. As one of the only “normies” who didn’t attend the eerie Nevermore Academy, the character forged a strong bond with the deadpan Wednesday through his work as a barista at the local coffee shop in town.
Viewers were immediately smitten with the blossoming relationship between the most famous wide-eyed goth teenager in the world, and the sweet, down-to-earth, understanding, and loyal local, who was played by Hunter Doohan. The talented 29-year-old actor is brilliant as the multi-faceted Tyler, who tears down Wednesday’s somber facade with his boy-next-door charm before shocking Wednesday—and us—to her stone-cold core when his villainous secrets came to the surface.
For those who have yet to watch the series (seriously, where have you been?!), we won’t get into too much detail to avoid any spoilers, but if you want further information on the actor who played Tyler in Wednesday, especially while we wait for season 2, then keep reading.
Who is Hunter Doohan?
Hunter was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas, later telling The Film Frenzy that he “grew up all over the south” where “there wasn’t always a lot of opportunities to act.” He later found solace in his high school drama department and moved to Los Angeles after graduation for an internship with a casting director. He enrolled in a two-year acting program in Santa Monica before working his way up with a slew of acting projects.
While Wednesday is now one of Hunter’s most notable acting credentials to date, he also made waves starring as Adam Desiato in the critically acclaimed Showtime series Your Honor alongside Bryan Cranston, where his character was responsible for a hit-and-run that involved an organized crime family, prompting his lawyer father to go to great lengths to protect him. Doohan has also starred in the films Soundwave and Where We Disappear, and can be seen in the Netflix mini-series What/If, HBO’s Westworld, and ABC’s Schooled.
While Hunter is making waves in the acting world, family means everything to him. He is the son of Australian tennis player Peter Doohan, who reached the final of the Australian Open in 1987 with his men’s doubles partner Laurie Warder. Peter sadly passed away in 2017 from ALS, and Hunter regularly posts heartwarming tributes to him on Instagram and has even fundraised for the ALS community.
Meanwhile, Hunter also shares loved-up tributes to his husband, Fielder Jewett, whom he met on the dating app Tinder. “We met in like 2015 and then got engaged during the pandemic,” he explained on Ira Madison III and Louis Virtel’s Keep It! podcast. “The pandemic was great for me because I’d been off shooting Your Honor for six months in New Orleans. So I came back, and all of a sudden, we got to spend time together. We had so many friends that either broke up or got married during the pandemic or had a baby.”
The couple got engaged on December 31, 2020, and married on June 17, 2022, in a ceremony that was officiated by Hunter’s Your Honor co-star Bryan Cranston. In his wedding day Instagram post, he gushed: “Trying to sum up your wedding day in an Instagram caption is hard… It was absolutely the best day of our lives! Thank you to everyone who made it so special! ❤️”
It’s safe to say Hunter’s success is well-deserved and even more heartwarming, given that he was a massive fan of the 1993 movie Addams Family Values. He told Entertainment Weekly: “Christina Ricci, Anjelica Huston, and Joan Cusack in that movie are so good! Obviously, I will never compare myself to [Joan Cusack], but to be the villain in an Addams Family project brings me a lot of joy. ‘Don’t I deserve love … and jewelry?!’”
Luckily for us, we will be seeing a whole lot more of Hunter Doohan, as Wednesday’s co-creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar confirmed that he will be returning for season 2. When asked by Variety if Tyler could potentially return for the next installment, they said, “Yeah. Absolutely. He’s out there. That’s what we wanted to convey.” His return makes sense as we last saw him being chained and hooked up to machines while being transported to a facility after unleashing his terrifying Hyde monster form.
How much more dreary chaos will he cause to Nevermore Academy? We can’t wait for season 2 to find out!
(featured image: Netflix)
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