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Most of us first encountered Thomas Doherty on the Gossip Girl reboot, where he played Max Wolfe with the kind of camera-ready confidence that makes you assume he was raised on set. He wasn’t. The Edinburgh-born actor came up through musical theater before moving to L.A. and learning the ropes of on-camera acting. If Gossip Girl was part of that education, Doherty’s new role in season two of the post-apocalyptic hit Paradise feels like a graduation. The 31 year-old actor is back in New York now, where he just finished a run in Little Shop of Horrors on stage, and where he’s talking to his friend and former Tell Me Lies costar Grace Van Patten about what it feels like when you’ve finally arrived.
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THURSDAY 6 PM MAR. 5, 2026 NYC
GRACE VAN PATTEN: Are you ready?
THOMAS DOHERTY: Hi. Oh, I’ve missed you so much.
VAN PATTEN: Are you ready for my hard-hitting questions?
DOHERTY: [Laughs] Always.
VAN PATTEN: I just watched the first season of Paradise and I’m obsessed with it. I literally finished the last episode of season one a few days ago, and then I checked my phone and there was a text to do this. It was crazy timing.
DOHERTY: [Laughs]
VAN PATTEN: It’s an insane cast. Sterling K. Brown, Julianne Nicholson, and now Shailene Woodley in season two.
DOHERTY: Your twin.
VAN PATTEN: I have to ask, did you feel like you were seeing double?
DOHERTY: Okay, this was a real roundabout moment. I watched Tell Me Lies when it first came out, and I was like, “Oh my god, that’s Shailene Woodley.” Then I went on Tell Me Lies and worked with you, and then the job after was with Shailene Woodley. Kind of mental.
VAN PATTEN: I think your whole career should be going back and forth between us.
DOHERTY: I would do anything for that. And then we could have a three. [Laughs]
VAN PATTEN: A three what?
DOHERTY: I don’t want to finish that. Like, three of us, you know?
VAN PATTEN: A trio?
DOHERTY: Yeah, a threesome.
VAN PATTEN: I’m not really sure why I’m not playing her long-lost sister.
DOHERTY: Yeah, you guys are 100 percent sisters.
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VAN PATTEN: Did you watch the show before you got the part?
DOHERTY: Yes. I’m fascinated with the post-apocalyptic, end-of-the-world sci-fi thing anyway. And the audition came about after Tell Me Lies, so I was unemployed-ish. I was unemployed for nine months or something.
VAN PATTEN: Were you starting to get anxious?
DOHERTY: No, never.
VAN PATTEN: Wow, good for you.
DOHERTY: Do you get that?
VAN PATTEN: For sure. I hit a certain point where I’m like, “I will never work again.”
DOHERTY: That’s so interesting.
VAN PATTEN: It’s irrational. I just get antsy. I’m really bad at creating a routine for myself.
DOHERTY: What really helped me was moving to New York.
VAN PATTEN: Oh yeah. I do find that New York is a lot easier.
DOHERTY: Well, you’re from here.
VAN PATTEN: I’m from there, and I find it’s so much easier to be lonely in L.A.
DOHERTY: I lived in L.A. for three years and it was so hard for me. Granted, it took me so long to even know the difference between an agent and a manager. I was learning from scratch and it was hard to do it from the outside. But L.A. is a city where you can just float. That’s why New York’s been so good for me, because of the energy here, and the proximity. Sometimes, if I don’t have anything to do I’ll just go for a wander, or I’ll go for a coffee, because the probability of bumping into someone you know is— [Laughs] That makes me sound so sad.
VAN PATTEN: [Laughs] You’re so popular.
DOHERTY: I made myself sound like I don’t have any friends.
VAN PATTEN: I know what you mean. You can walk out your door and there’s always something going on. There’s constant energy.
DOHERTY: I don’t know if this is true, but apparently Manhattan is on top of the biggest quartz mine in the world.
VAN PATTEN: Is this a headline you read?
DOHERTY: This was a TikTok on an ex-girlfriend’s phone.
VAN PATTEN: A quartz mine? So are you trying to say there’s crystal energy coming through the ground?
DOHERTY: Yeah.
VAN PATTEN: I would like to believe that.
DOHERTY: Even if it’s true or not, it still has that magic.
VAN PATTEN: I know.
DOHERTY: But working in L.A. is actually amazing.
VAN PATTEN: That’s a dream.
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DOHERTY: Yeah, honestly, Grace, working at Paramount Studios—like being from Edinburgh and then driving under the arches.
VAN PATTEN: Those studios are the one thing that has stayed the same since the beginning of movies. Did you feel like an old actor, driving to work?
DOHERTY: I felt like I was in a movie.
VAN PATTEN: That’s so fun.
DOHERTY: The Paramount lot has been really good at trying to preserve as much as possible.
VAN PATTEN: Do you have a trailer on the lot, or do you have a room?
DOHERTY: A trailer on the lot, which I prefer. It gets me into the mindset, you know?
VAN PATTEN: Yeah, a little tin box.
DOHERTY: They’re tiny. I think I’m a third of a trailer still. I don’t think I’ve made it up to half yet, but I’ll get there. But even the sound of the ladders walking up to the trailers is so specific. And the smell, and they all look the same, with weird brown wood. Then you have your food come in, and it all tastes the same. I love that side of my job. [Laughs] When I get asked if I prefer theater or film, I say I love the two hours when plays or musicals are happening. You never came to see Little Shop [of Horrors], by the way. I hate you for that.
VAN PATTEN: Venus and the fly trap. No, what was it? Rocky Horror? Oh fuck, what was it?
DOHERTY: Little Shop of Horrors.
VAN PATTEN: I’m genuinely sad I didn’t come to see that.
DOHERTY: Save it, Grace.
VAN PATTEN: Just do another one, please.
DOHERTY: I can’t wait to do another one. But I like the lifestyle of film.
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VAN PATTEN: You like the nostalgia and the routine, it seems?
DOHERTY: I like the whole thing. It’s all-encompassing.
VAN PATTEN: You like the connective tissue between each job?
DOHERTY: That’s a great way to put it.
VAN PATTEN: I like that too. It seems like you’re a creature of habit.
DOHERTY: You don’t know if you’re going to have it all week, or maybe you’ll have it on Monday and then Friday, but that’s still enough routine for me. Whereas with theater, it’s too structured.
VAN PATTEN: It’s so disciplined.
DOHERTY: Oh Jesus, yeah. Have you done it before?
VAN PATTEN: Yeah, it ruined me. In the best way. It’s so scary, and so much when you’re doing it, but I’ve never felt more fulfilled than when I was done.
DOHERTY: Yeah.
VAN PATTEN: I genuinely felt so proud of myself for just doing it. Like showing up every day. Also, you cannot hide when you’re doing a play. You can’t do another take.
DOHERTY: But I love that. Even when it’s a bad show, you learn so much from it.
VAN PATTEN: Yeah, and you get to fix it in real time. Did you shoot season two before or after you did the play?
DOHERTY: Before. So I did season two from March to August, then I had a week off, and then I went straight into the play. I needed more time off.
VAN PATTEN: That’s quick.
DOHERTY: Yeah. I had to learn the music in two weeks. Honestly, the lines were the harder part for me. There’s dancing, there’s puppetry. You’d have known if you came to see it.
VAN PATTEN: [Laughs]
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DOHERTY: I think doing a play would be a wee bit different than a musical, because a musical is physically so taxing. I was playing against time with Seymour [his character in Little Shop], and the only way I could convince myself that I was this character was to energize it. When you start the show energized, you have to keep up that consistency. You have to go to the theater at 5pm, but you don’t get home until 11pm. You don’t fall asleep until 1am. Then the next day you’re tired and you’re trying to save your voice and stuff.
VAN PATTEN: What do you think you’ll take from the play into your next job?
DOHERTY: I think I’ll be a lot more grateful. I mean, theater life is rough. Mentally, emotionally, physically. You suck it up because everyone else does. Whereas we’re kind of pampered on sets.
VAN PATTEN: Yeah.
DOHERTY: We’re afforded so much time and space. It’s a different kind of hard. But energetically, it’s not as demanding. I had to find a composure within that energy. So now I can bring that composure into a much more relaxed environment. And with that, there’s a calmness, where I think authentic choices come to you.
VAN PATTEN: Mm-hmm.
DOHERTY: Does that make sense? I know it sounds a little pretentious.
VAN PATTEN: It sounds like you’re trusting yourself more.
DOHERTY: Yes, I really do. I’ve done 10 years in the industry, and I always refer to that as my apprenticeship. But now I’m in spaces where I feel like I belong, and like I can have a voice. I’m taking ownership and possession of my work more. For a long time, I was just drifting. But then I had to really look at things and ask, “Do I want to stay here or do I want to do more?”
VAN PATTEN: That makes so much sense.
DOHERTY: I’m not trying to prove anything either. That’s where you can be the most honest with your work, because your ego becomes diminished.
VAN PATTEN: I completely agree. Okay, segue. I want to talk about Link [Doherty’s character on Paradise].
DOHERTY: Hit me.
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VAN PATTEN: I want to know what you actually did to prepare for this role. Did you learn survival skills? Your character is named after a character in [The Legend of] Zelda. Did you play Zelda to get into character?
DOHERTY: I was in L.A. on a Thursday for casting, doing final chemistry reads with Annie [Woodley’s character], and by Friday I was in L.A. filming. The first scene I did was with Shailene. She cries, I cry, we’re crying.
VAN PATTEN: Oh my god, that scene was gorgeous. I could feel how pent-up these two people who haven’t been touched in years were. I can’t believe that was the first one.
DOHERTY: I’ll be honest. In the first take I was just watching Shailene act, and I was like, “What the fuck is going on? This is my life?” Then I was like, “Okay, lock in Thomas.” It was just like working with you. I never had to act. You’re so, so real. And Shailene’s the same. And doing Little Shop of Horrors with Madeline Brewer as well. All three of you girls, I could work with all of you for the rest of my career.
VAN PATTEN: That’s so nice.
DOHERTY: But with Shailene, all it required was vulnerability, and that is so scary. I talked about the whole drive into Paramount. All these things are really big moments in an actor’s career, but you can’t bring them onto set. It’s kind of hard to leave it in a third of a trailer, but when you’re working with really good actors, they lock you in.
VAN PATTEN: Yeah, you’re forced to go there.
DOHERTY: But I didn’t really have much time to prepare. I just tried to pick Dan [Fogelman, the Paradise creator]’s brain. Because you know what it’s like when you get onto a show. They’re still writing the last episodes, so they don’t even really know who your character is. You have to beg them for as much information as possible.
VAN PATTEN: That was my next question. What were the conversations like with Dan?
DOHERTY: You know what it’s like. It takes you a beat to find a character. And then once you settle in, you’re like, “Oh, thank god.” I just tried to personalize as much as I possibly could in a short period of time. Personalization is a good way for me to—
VAN PATTEN: Find your way in?
DOHERTY: Yeah. I think when you endow it with emotion, it comes to life more.
VAN PATTEN: I obviously know how goofy and silly you are, and how much you love to have fun. I love seeing little slivers of that in your performance. I’m like, “That was a Thomas laugh.”
DOHERTY: [Laughs] I laugh in Scottish.
VAN PATTEN: You laugh in Scottish?
DOHERTY: Yeah, if I’m doing an American accent, I still laugh in Scottish. It’s my giveaway. It’s time to get an American laugh.
VAN PATTEN: Were you ever a Boy Scout in Scotland? Did they have that?
DOHERTY: We do, yeah. But I was too cool for that.
VAN PATTEN: Of course you were.
DOHERTY: And then I got uncool, later in life.
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VAN PATTEN: Thomas, what would your contribution to the end of the world group be?
DOHERTY: That’s a hard question, Grace. What would yours be?
VAN PATTEN: Don’t turn this around on me. I know what yours would be.
DOHERTY: Performing for the troops? [Laughs]
VAN PATTEN: Yeah, you’d be the morale booster. You’d keep everyone happy.
DOHERTY: Really?
VAN PATTEN: You’d be the laughs, and you’d keep everyone’s energy up.
DOHERTY: That’s really sweet of you. I’d like to think so. Honestly, I would love to be like Link. Maybe not with the responsibility of leadership.
VAN PATTEN: To be the leader would be crazy.
DOHERTY: Stressful. The show touches on this for sure, but when it’s about survival, people change so quickly and fall back into a very primitive mode which is void of morality, almost. I mean, we’re seeing it today already in the world.
VAN PATTEN: Yeah.
DOHERTY: But Sterling and Link show that you always have a choice. The takeaway from the show for me was that you can choose to be a good person.
VAN PATTEN: I love that. You’ve just done so much. You’ve done comedy, you’ve played musicians, you’ve been a vampire.
DOHERTY: [Laughs] Twice.
VAN PATTEN: Really?
DOHERTY: Yeah. I look like a vampire. Sometimes I look at myself and I’m like, “What the fuck?”
VAN PATTEN: You’re a great vampire.
DOHERTY: Thank you.
VAN PATTEN: But you were in Gossip Girl and Tell Me Lies. And now you’re a survivor in the end of the world. There’s so much variety. Is that a thought-out thing, or are you just drawn to what you’re drawn to?
DOHERTY: It’s a bit of both, honestly. But I’ve always had this 10-year apprenticeship idea in my head. Because I never did any film, it was all musical theater, I was like, “I need to learn the camera.” I’ve been very fortunate, and I have an amazing team behind me. I couldn’t have planned it better myself. Some nights I would’ve gone to bed earlier. But we had fun, Grace. We had fun.
VAN PATTEN: Yeah.
DOHERTY: And doing a variety of things has allowed me to know what I want to go after.
VAN PATTEN: What is that?
DOHERTY: I want to work on bigger productions, with different directors and different actors. I want to keep growing as a person and also as an actor.
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VAN PATTEN: Yeah. I have a good game we can end on.
DOHERTY: Oh, I love that.
VAN PATTEN: I was going to ask, “Who’s your top five dinner guests that are alive?” But I’m going to do it Paradise style. If you could choose five people to be in your group for the end of the world, who would you choose?
DOHERTY: Do I have to personally know them?
VAN PATTEN: No.
DOHERTY: Alright. We’re bringing Eckhart Tolle along for sure.
VAN PATTEN: You need that.
DOHERTY: Let’s get the vibe set.
VAN PATTEN: Yep.
DOHERTY: And—oh, god, this is a hard one. Honestly, probably Shailene.
VAN PATTEN: That’s amazing. Who’s going to be your fighter? Sir William Wallace?
DOHERTY: Who?
VAN PATTEN: Braveheart. You know that’s my ancestor?
DOHERTY: [Laughs] Do you know how many Americans have said that to me?
VAN PATTEN: I’ll show you the documents. I have proof.
DOHERTY: This is really hard.
VAN PATTEN: I’ll change it to, if you had to pick four characters you’ve played, who would you choose?
DOHERTY: Dracula, 100 percent.
VAN PATTEN: Did you and Shailene talk about how you were both in a movie called The Descendants?
DOHERTY: We didn’t, actually, because hers was really cool.
VAN PATTEN: So is yours. Okay, it might be a trio. It might be you, Shailene Woodley and Eckhart Tolle.
DOHERTY: Oh, and Daisy, my dog.
VAN PATTEN: That’s a good one. Well, good luck to you four.
DOHERTY: Grace, you’re such an angel, I love you.
VAN PATTEN: That was so much fun.
DOHERTY: I’ll be out in three weeks.
VAN PATTEN: Okay, hit us up. Let’s do something.
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Grooming: Amanda Wilson using Oribe at A-Frame Agency.
Photography Assistant: Diego Salcedo.
Fashion Assistant: Izaake Zuckerman.
Production Direction: Alexandra Weiss.
Photography Production: Georgia Ford.
On-set Production: Tashi Bhutia.
Production Assistant: Giselle J. Quinones.
Location: NYC Film Locations.
