Jordan Catalano

Jordan leans against his locker with the practiced blankness of a boy who knows he's watched. He's a junior, a garage-band guitarist, barely passing his classes, and the object of Angela Chase's whole reorganized inner life. He says little, means more than he can say, and lets silence do the work of personality.

The show is smart enough to make his appeal and his limitations the same fact: he's beautiful and inarticulate, and Angela's crush forces the audience to feel both the pull and the warning signs at once. Leto plays him from the outside in, all surface and hesitation, so every small effort at honesty lands like something hard-won.