Brian Jordan Alvarez (born July 9, 1987) is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is best known for creating and starring in the FX comedy series English Teacher. He is also known for his original songs, recurring roles as Estéfan in Will & Grace (2018–2020) and Wesley in Jane the Virgin (2015–2016), appearances in such films as M3GAN and 80 for Brady, and his own self-produced films and series, most notably his 2016 web series The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo.
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Early life
Alvarez was born in Manhattan, New York City to Paul Jordan and Angela Jordan Alvarez, an electrical engineer and Spanish language professor, respectively. He has a sister, Catalina. He is of Colombian descent matrilineally and has roots from the American South from the other side of his family. He speaks Spanish and English fluently.
He spent his childhood in Winchester, Tennessee, where he began acting and making movies. He went on to attend Saint Andrew's Sewanee School and then the high school program at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Heavily involved in his school's theater program, he continued to study acting at the USC School of Dramatic Arts. He graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting and settled in Los Angeles the following year.
Career
YouTube
In 2012, Alvarez collaborated with CollegeHumor on an episode titled "Gay Men Will Marry Your Girlfriends". In 2016, Alvarez wrote, produced, directed and starred in the five-part web comedy series The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo. The series played at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival as part of its New Online Work. The series was nominated for the Gotham Award for Breakthrough Series – Shortform and was named Indiewire's number-one web series for the year.
Early television roles
He has performed roles in several television shows including: Will & Grace, Life in Pieces, Jane the Virgin, and Go-Go Boy Interrupted. In October 2014, he was cast in a supporting role in the MTV scripted comedy pilot Self Promotion. The show, directed by Zach Braff, was ultimately not picked up by the network.
On April 22, 2015, Alvarez co-starred on season 6, episode 18 of Hot in Cleveland titled "Cleveland Calendar Girls". He played the photographer who took engagement photos for Joy (played by Jane Leeves) and nude photos for Elka (played by Betty White) and her friends as they put together a nude calendar of elderly women to raise money for the Cleveland Animal Shelter.
On October 17, 2016, Alvarez was on season 6, episode 3 of 2 Broke Girls titled "That '80s Movie" directed by Fred Savage. Alvarez played Tad, one half of a gay couple Caroline (played by Beth Behrs) called her "hot gay guys" that she was trying to use to lure cool clientele into her new bar.
From 2018 to 2020, Alvarez played the recurring role of Estéfan Gloria, Jack McFarland's fiancé and later husband, in all three seasons of the 2010s revival of NBC's Will & Grace.
In August 2020, it was announced Alvarez was cast in the Netflix quarantine anthology series Social Distance. He appeared in the episode "Zero Feet Away" opposite Max Jenkins. Alvarez has also made appearances on Australian television due to his ability to do a convincing Australian accent.
Social media
Alvarez has gained prominence for his viral videos on Instagram and TikTok, in which he often portrays a rotating cast of absurdist characters using thick accents and distorting facial filters. In September 2023, he posted a video featuring his character TJ Mack performing an improvised song titled "Sitting", which quickly became an online sensation, accumulating millions of views and being remixed and covered by fans in various genres. Versions of "Sitting" have appeared on the radio in both the United States and Australia, and Vanity Fair has described it as possibly 2023's "song of the summer."
In November 2024, he went viral for daily shirtless dancing videos promoting his show English Teacher. He dances to a trending audio clip from "Teach Me Tonight," episode 19 of season two of Gilmore Girls. In the audio, the character Kurt says, "I love your daughter," and when his father responds, "What do you have to offer her?" Kurt replies, "Nothing, only this," and then music starts. Sometimes Alvarez takes off articles of clothing while dancing, with one journalist making a compilation of twenty-two different shirtless videos of Alvarez doing that trend that went viral.
Alvarez has a 'signature move' of lifting one leg at some point during each dancing video. He initially started posting the videos because he wanted to drum up more buzz and viewership for English Teacher, and after posting show clips, reviews, and the more traditional posts to get the word out, without any of them seeing much traction, he tried the dancing angle saying, "Desperation is a powerful thing."
English Teacher
Around 2021, Alvarez said that he was retiring from writing and producing to focus on acting, but Paul Simms, now one of the executive producers of English Teacher, convinced Alvarez otherwise. Simms had been impressed after watching old episodes of The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo and asked Alvarez to create a TV show. Alvarez said of their meeting that he told Simms "'I tried to make TV shows in the system; I don't know how to get through the notes process,' and Paul said, 'I'm going to be your guide, you're coming out of retirement, we're making a TV show.' This is what you want in your life, this divine voice to float down from heaven and say, 'You can do it, I believe in you.'"
When coming up with the idea for English Teacher, Alvarez leaned on inspiration from his family, as his mom and sister are both teachers. Having grown up a blue dot in a red state (Tennessee), he thought setting the show in the suburbs of Austin, Texas would be fertile ground for having all types of characters and opinions, saying: "There's no set of opinions you can really avoid in a public high school, so I knew all of that in one place could make for good comedy."
In November 2023, it was announced that FX had ordered Alvarez's 2022 English Teacher comedy pilot to series. Alvarez created the series and stars as the protagonist, an English teacher working at a high school in Austin, Texas. He is also a writer, director, and producer on the show.
In September 2024, the first season of English Teacher premiered to critical acclaim. The New York Times called it one of "Best TV Shows of 2024." Entertainment Weekly gave the show an "A+ grade."
On February 7, 2025, FX renewed English Teacher for a second season. This decision drew criticism in light of the multiple allegations of sexual assault against Alvarez that had recently come to light. In November 2025, the series was cancelled.
In 2025, Alvarez played on Celebrity Jeopardy! against Roy Wood Jr. and Phoebe Robinson. Alvarez played for the charity Communities in Schools and won $30,000 on their behalf, coming in second to Roy Wood Jr.
Personal life
When speaking of how The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo relates to his experience as a gay man in Los Angeles, Alvarez said, "It's pretty easy to be queer in the city. The show can look like a gay utopia maybe because I kind of live in a queer utopia."
He almost did not graduate college due to alcohol and drug use and got sober because "he was scared not knowing if he was going to be as successful as he knew he wanted to be".
Allegations of sexual assault
While a student at the University of Southern California, Alvarez allegedly stalked a female friend's boyfriend who later filed a no-contact order against him. Another student alleged that Alvarez groped him without consent, saying, "It got to the point where I was so uncomfortable I didn't want to be in the same room with him".
In August 2024, Alvarez's The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo co-star Jon Ebeling, who played Billy in the series, posted an Instagram Story alluding to having been sexually assaulted by Alvarez, comparing his experiences working with him to the plot of the Netflix series Baby Reindeer. The following month, the day before English Teacher's premiere, Ebeling filed a sexual assault report against Alvarez with the Los Angeles Police Department for the 2016 incident, which Vulture covered in a December 2024 story. Ebeling alleged that Alvarez sexually assaulted Ebeling by performing nonconsensual oral sex on him during the shooting of a 2016 episode. Alvarez denied the story through a spokesperson alleging that "all interactions with Ebeling were always entirely consensual" and that he believed the 2016 incident to be consensual because of their prior sexual history.
Filmography
Web series and shorts
Selected credits
