There’s a man with a machete in Noah Centineo’s tree. 

“Like 35 yards away from me, a guy’s in a tree just casually chopping off branches,” the actor tells Tudum — quite calmly, in fact. He’s realized the man is neither a crazed fan nor an intrepid paparazzo. He’s a gardener. Potential crisis averted.

Miami-born Centineo is no stranger to attention. After breaking out big-time as sweet high school boyfriend Peter Kavinsky in the To All the Boys trilogy, he headlined rom-coms Sierra Burgess Is a Loser and The Perfect Date, and he starred in DC Comics blockbuster Black Adam. Now, he stars as unlikely CIA operative Owen Hendricks in Netflix action thriller series The Recruit.

But he’s not just the star — Centineo is both leading man and executive producer in the project, in which he plays a recent law school grad who unearths a major “graymail” case during his first week working as a lawyer for the CIA. A woman claiming to be a former intelligence asset threatens to release state secrets unless Owen helps release her from jail. (Graymail, by the way, is not quite as serious as blackmail, but a national security risk nonetheless.) Although Owen seemingly stumbles through the investigation, he keeps getting things right. He’s a smart and loyal guy just following his gut, and that gets him far (much to the chagrin of his older co-workers). 

Centineo was 22 when he became the internet’s collective object of affection in To All the Boys I've Loved Before (TATB). Much like on-screen love Lara Jean (Lana Condor), fans found his golden retriever energy and soulful stare irresistible. (Thankfully in The Recruit, he graduates from teenager to mid-20s, his IRL age: “I’m out of high school. We’re growing up, people, and it’s fantastic! I’m psyched for it,” he raves.) And as much as he appreciated (and still appreciates) the universal love, it’s a strange phenomenon to suddenly be recognized everywhere you go. 

“Having people who don’t know you know your face is not inherently organic. It's not found in the animal kingdom,” Centineo tells Tudum over the phone a few weeks ahead of his new show’s big launch. “It’s cool, and it’s quite interesting too.”

The lack of privacy, however? It’s not been great. “But it's also given me so many different opportunities that I never would have had. I never would have seen so many different places and met so many different people and experienced different cultures,” he says. “It’s kind of like meditation, right? You just have to be the observer. You’ve got to sit there and watch everything.”

It would’ve been easy for Centineo to follow the heartthrob route. But one of his revelations over the past four years is realizing that he wants to take advantage of all the doors that have opened for him.

“I had no problem being an ‘internet boyfriend.’ It was a really incredible time in my life to have done something that impacted so many different people across the planet,” he says of his post-TATB fame. “I mean, what an opportunity to be involved in something that will bring nostalgia to people!” 

Now he’s trying to take advantage of even more opportunities that have come his way — like both starring in and executive-producing The Recruit. In fact, he’s the one who first brought creator Alexi Hawley’s script to Netflix and helped develop the story.

Hawley tells Tudum that Centineo had a hand in all aspects of production. “He really got the show on a DNA level, which is always incredibly rewarding when it’s been living in your head for so long,” the showrunner says. “He was a great partner. He was all in. He was excited about doing the job, so it was a pleasure. He was incredibly valuable during casting, because not every leading actor wants to participate on the level of reading with people and all that. He was just so invested in finding the perfect people that he did all the chemistry reads. Then all the moving pieces of production, from set design to shooting and prep, he was there for them.”

While Centineo clearly has the right instincts for filmmaking — he hand-picked The Recruit, after all — at the moment he’s still taking it all in. Being involved in the project from pre-production to release, having input on sound and edits — it’s all part of what Centineo wants to do in the future. Although he doesn’t necessarily think too much about whose Hollywood career he wants to emulate, he says he loves what Brad Pitt has done both on-screen and off with production company Plan B.

“His role on the couch in True Romance is just so funny and so dope and iconic. I just respect the way that he went about his career, and I think that as I get older, I gain even more appreciation and respect for how he carries himself and moves through this world telling stories.”

Basically, Centineo wants to do it all: leading man, love interest, action hero, couch-bound sidekick, weirdo in a Coen brothers movie. And if the acting or producing thing doesn’t work out, well, there’s always the CIA. Hawley thinks Centineo would make a fantastic field agent (despite his quiz results!).

“He’s super charming, he's really engaged,” Hawley says — perfect traits for recruited assets. “Anytime you talk to him, you feel like the most important person in the world. He’d definitely be good at it.”

The Recruit is streaming now on Netflix.

Go on Set of The Recruit with Noah CentineoA behind-the-scenes look into the filming of the new series.