ANYONE WHO WATCHED not less than just a little little bit of Riverdale—the absurdly campy CW teen drama collection based on the Archie comics—may inform that Charles Melton had something special going on. When the 35-year-old actor entered that collection in its second season, taking up the function of resident jock Reggie Mantle from departing star Ross Butler, he immediately confirmed audiences a glimmer in his eye and an entire lot of charisma.
Check Out Melton’s Men’s Health Cover Here
Melton’s star energy was on an evident simmer for a number of years, as Riverdale ran from 2017 to 2023. Guest roles in reveals like Poker Face and supporting elements in motion pictures like Bad Boys for Life continued to show what he may do exterior of a world populated by Archie, Jughead, Betty, and Veronica. But it wasn’t till 2023, when he starred in acclaimed director Todd Haynes’s May December—a job that earned him tons of Oscar buzz, however in the end not a nomination—that he actually acquired seen. Melton turned one of many business’s buzziest stars in a single day, and his mixture of physicality and refined, softly-expressed emotion made him a staple on each director’s casting want checklist.
Top and shorts by Orlebar Brown, necklace by XIV Karats, watch by Omega, earrings by Anita Ko, footwear by Adidas.
Major roles have adopted, together with a supporting half in final 12 months’s Warfare, co-directed by Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza. But maybe his juiciest function so far is available in season 2 of Beef, Netflix’s anthology collection from creator Lee Sung Jin. Melton performs Austin Davis, one of many 4 leads within the present’s second go-around (reverse Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, and Cailee Spaeny), and he will get to place his distinctive mixture of refined decisions and bodily brawn on show.
Read the Full Men’s Health Cover Story Here
And, effectively, let’s discuss that brawn, lets? Like Melton himself, Austin is a former school soccer participant (revealed within the collection to be a winner of the Dick Butkus Award, the very best honor for a linebacker). To put it merely: he is ripped. Melton himself can also be ripped, as we see in each Beef season 2, and within the photograph shoot of Men’s Health’s Spring 2026 cover story. Much of Beef‘s second season finds Austin wrestling with the present’s titular battle as he is working by his personal profession within the health and wellness house. As such, he spends lots of time shirtless.
Shirtless like these extra photographs we’ve got of Melton from his MH cover shoot. We know you wish to see them, and, so, effectively, right here they’re. Enjoy.
Evan is the tradition editor for Men’s Health, with bylines in The New York Times, MTV News, Brooklyn Magazine, and VICE. He loves bizarre motion pictures, watches an excessive amount of TV, and listens to music extra typically than he would not.
