Troye Sivan is heading home to Melbourne to headline the NGV Gala
After launching his career on YouTube at the age of 12, Troye Sivan is now a bona fide global star with one of the most active fanbases in showbiz. And the 23-year-old from Melbourne is a role model speaking to a new generation.
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TROYE Sivan was on set with English pop star Charli XCX, filming the video clip for their duet 1999, when he had yet another pinch-yourself moment.
As the pair played dress-ups referencing pop-culture icons of the song title’s era — including recreating the famous bow-of-the-boat scene from Titanic — it made the Aussie singer think, “This was one of the days when I go, ‘What is my life, how did I end up here?’ but it’s so much fun.”
After launching his career on YouTube at the age of 12, the 23-year-old is now a bona fide global star who currently has his second studio album, Bloom, in the charts and a box-office hit on his hands in the thought-provoking film Boy Erased.
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With 9.4 million Instagram followers and more than 8.5 million on Twitter, and almost seven million YouTube subscribers, he has one of the most active fan bases in showbiz.
He’s fresh from a sellout North American tour of 30-plus dates — and made sure he savoured every minute.
“Now I know what I’m doing a little bit more, I can really slow down and enjoy everything a lot more,” Sivan says. “I’m not as nervous or don’t doubt myself as much and really let loose and have an amazing time. It’s been such a blessing.”
Sivan’s parents and older brother Steele joined him on tour, which he loved too.
“It made it feel like home,” he says. “You can feel like you’re in a vacuum when you’re touring because you’re away from your friends and doing the same thing every day but in a different city, so to have the normality of having people you love around to share everything with made it really, really special.”
On Wednesday, he’ll attend the ARIA Awards in Sydney, where he’s up for four gongs, including best male artist, before heading home to Melbourne to perform at the NGV Gala next weekend.
It’s the National Gallery of Victoria’s second annual black-tie gala, with a menu by lauded local chef and restaurateur Andrew McConnell and cocktails by The Bar at Dinner by Heston.
The event will also officially launch the NGV’s summer blockbuster Escher x nendo: Between Two Worlds, an exhibition turning the spotlight on the famous distorted designs of Dutch graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher, set in immersive spaces created by acclaimed Japanese design firm nendo.
NGV director Tony Ellwood says Sivan was the gallery’s first choice as the headline act.
“The gala is a glamorous celebration of art, fashion and music and we couldn’t think of a more perfect artist to encapsulate the evening,” Ellwood says. “His exclusive and intimate performance under the stained glass ceiling of the NGV’s iconic Great Hall promises to be a live music experience that will be talked about for many years to come.”
Sivan was excited to get the call-up.
“I feel like this is such a glamorous event,” he says. “Any excuse to get glammed up I’m completely into, and also to celebrate art and music and food and fashion — all the good things in life — is an absolute dream, but also to come back home is so exciting for me.”
Wherever he’s touring in the world, Sivan tries to visit a local art gallery.
“I know it’s a great day out wherever you are,” he says.
TROYE Sivan Mellet was born in South Africa but raised in Perth by parents Laurelle, a former model, and Shaun, a real estate agent, alongside brothers Steele and Tyde and sister Sage.
Sivan now lives in Los Angeles with his boyfriend, American model Jacob Bixenman, while the rest of his family upped stumps to Melbourne’s Caulfield North about 18 months ago.
Sage, 21, is studying marketing and is co-founder of the Peach Pack social enterprise, a feminine hygiene product subscription service that benefits charities such as Share the Dignity. Steele, 25, is a newly graduated lawyer while Tyde, 18, is a DJ and recording artist — he performs under the name Tyde Levi — who’s recently released his second single, Sober.
When they’re all in the same city, the Jewish family always sits down to Friday night Shabbat dinner.
Sivan is still getting to know Melbourne whenever he’s back to visit, but knows he can always count on a good breakfast and great coffee.
Many of his childhood chums have made the move from Perth to Melbourne so he spends downtime catching up with them, which might be a walk around the Botanic Gardens or a pita at Hardware Lane’s Miznon.
He feels lucky to have found fame mostly minus any paparazzi presence.
“I’m happy with the level of where things are at,” Sivan says. “I feel like I’m achieving everything I’ve ever dreamt of while completely being able to go to the grocery shop and get some milk without there being any sort of hassle.”
SIVAN’S boundless talent also extends to acting. For his first major role, he played a young Hugh Jackman in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. He’s also acted on stage alongside Sir Ian McKellen in Waiting for Godot and played the title role in Spud, a South African film franchise starring John Cleese.
Sivan’s currently gracing the big screen in Boy Erased, which is based on the best-selling 2016 memoir of Garrard Conley, the son of an American Baptist preacher who was forced into a gay conversion program in 2004.
Sivan wasn’t aware of Conley’s story until he read the film’s script, which was written by fellow Aussie Joel Edgerton, who also directed and starred in it.
“I knew gay conversation therapy existed, but the thing I was most surprised by was how new the story was,” Sivan says. “I thought maybe the memoir was written about something that happened in the ’90s but it was based in 2004 and it’s still happening in 2018 — so that really shocked me.
“I hope (the movie) starts conversations and helps create change.
“I’m forever thankful to Joel. He really threw himself into this project and I’m so appreciative. It’s such an important story to tell.”
Aussie acting royalty Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman also star in the movie as the parents of Jared Eamons, the character based on Conley. Sivan plays another young man in the conversion camp, Gary.
While Sivan didn’t have any scenes with Crowe, he had a short one with Kidman, but managed to wrangle another by going in on a day off as an extra.
“I weasled my way in,” he says. “If you look really carefully at a scene where Nicole’s character picks up Jared from the camp one day, you can see a blond person leaning up against the pole in the background. That’s me, so I could be there on the same day as her.
“I can’t get over how nice she is. No one in this world has any excuse not to be the loveliest person ever because Nicole has no reason to have to be nice and she’s just the best.
“Moulin Rouge! is one of my favourite movies and I also made the mistake of watching Big Little Lies just before we started filming, so I was especially starstruck at that time when I met her because she was so fresh in my mind after doing an incredible, incredible job on that show as well. Yeah, I’m a big fan.”
Sivan has no other acting gigs on the horizon, but knows he’s fortunate to be able to pick and choose jobs that speak to him.
“If you’re an actor full-time, it can be pretty stressful trying to find projects and keep up with the rat race, but I feel lucky to feel so fulfilled by music as my full-time day job that acting’s a passion project on the side,” he says.
“I have the luxury of waiting around a bit more, which I’m doing right now until something sparks my interest.”
Sivan doesn’t get caught up in labels — is he a singer who can act, or an actor who can sing, dance and vlog? He’s more interested in the creative process of everything he turns his hand to.
“At the end of the day, I’ve always just loved making things — dreaming up music videos is a completely different job compared to writing the songs or coming up with a live show,” he says. “It doesn’t mean I enjoy either more or less. It’s all part of the fun to me. I feel lucky that that’s my job and I’ll keep dipping into these pots for as long as I can.”
While a major star in his own right, Sivan this year alone has had two big collaborations: with Ariana Grande on the single Dance to This and 1999 with Charli XCX.
Taylor Swift is high on his wish list, especially after he performed his chart-topper My My My! with her at a show on her Reputation tour in LA in May.
In the video for 1999, Sivan also dresses up as Eminem in a parody of the rapper, whom he recently called out for a homophobic slur in his latest album.
LGTBQ issues are close to Sivan’s heart. He supports The Trevor Project, a US not-for-profit focused on suicide prevention among gay, bisexual and transgender youth, and its 50 Bills 50 States campaign aiming to eradicate gay conversion therapy in the US.
Sivan also donated part proceeds of his recent US tour to The Ally Coalition, which works with grassroots LGTBQ support groups. This month, he cut a version of Queen’s Somebody to Love to raise funds for iconic late frontman Freddie Mercury’s AIDS charity, the Mercury Phoenix Trust.
Sivan came out to his parents in 2010, and exactly three years later to his fans, famously via YouTube, in a candid video that’s been watched more than eight million times.
Sivan says the first anniversary of Australia’s decision to allow same-sex marriage this month was something to be proud of but also long overdue.
“It felt like Australia’s caught up,” he says. “It felt out of character that we didn’t have marriage equality until we did.
“I was so, so proud to come from Australia, but there was just this one thing that was left,
so I was relieved that I get to scream from the rooftops about how Australia is the best country in the world.”
As for an Aussie tour in 2019 — “Definitely. I can’t wait.”
THE NGV GALA IS ON NEXT SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, AT NGV INTERNATIONAL. TICKETS $500. NGV.VIC.GOV.AU
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