My 3 Top Nick Jonas Roles

 Heyo! Happy Wednesday. I hope your week is going well. I bet you thought I was done writing about the Jonas Brothers, but I'm afraid you are mistaken. I am rambling about my favorite roles that Nick Jonas has performed. These three roles live rent-free in my head and have become some of my favorite fictional characters of all time. I wrote a Fangirl Friday post about Nick last year, so feel free to check that out.

Nick Jonas

I'm sure when most people think about Nick Jonas, they think about his successful music career as a solo artist and with his brothers, but not many people are aware that he is an actor too. I'm not talking just little celebrity cameos. I'm talking lead or supporting roles. He had been in a handful of firms and television shows. I took it upon myself to go through his filmography between 2023 and 2024 and I had so much fun doing so.

Sometimes when musicians try spilling over to film, they're not very successful, but I can confidently say that Nick is a very good performer onscreen. I do think if given a real opportunity, he could keep up with his wife, the incredibly talented Priyanka Chopra-Jonas. They did act together in her film, Love Again, but we don't talk about Joel and his five minutes of screen time for a reason.

Warning this post includes: film/show spoilers, mention of date rape, drug overdose, loss of a parent, abusive hazing by a fraternity.

Nick Jonas as Nate Kulina in Kingdom

1. Nate Kulina, Kingdom (2014-2017)

Let's get into my FAVORITE Nick role, Nate Kulina from the show Kingdom. Nate, my beloved sweet baby boy who deserves nothing but good in the world. the show centers around a gym run by Alvy Kulina and Lisa Prince who start the show as a couple. Nate is Alvy's youngest son who is a MMA fighter and just so happens to be gay and is closeted most of the show, due to the fear of not being accepted. Who could blame him for feeling this way? He's surrounded by overly masculine "dude bros". The writers put Nate through hell. He gets jumped at the very start of the first season, which makes him take a backseat to fighting for a bit. He's got a heart of gold and is the sweetest, best-meaning character in the show. He's got a very close relationship with his older brother, Jay. Nate is the glue keeping his family together. Despite everything he goes through on his own, he's always there for everyone else no matter what.

Nick brought a vulnerability and softness to Nate that I cannot anyone else playing him. He executes the more emotional scenes beautifully. There is a scene after he wakes up from being date raped and he goes off on the assistant of the perpetrator. The mixture of anger, pain, and confusion was demonstrated beautifully by Nick. He fully embodied the complexity of the character and gave such a compelling performance. Nick is completely mesmerizing as Nate. The depiction of his complicated feelings about his sexuality, and the way he dealt with it before accepting himself was done well. One of my favorite scenes in the show is when he and Jay are talking after saving their mother, Christina, from a drug overdose. When she joins them, Nate tells her that she has to get clean or she has to leave because he's "not losing [his] brother over [her]". He gives such a powerful performance of anger and vulnerability.

Let me not turn this into a post about Nate. Maybe he'll get his own Fangirl Friday. I would like to watch the show again, even though it'll hurt. I will NEVER forgive the writers for killing him in the penultimate episode. He died right after coming out to his dad and then being called a slur. I will never get over it and it still thirtys my feelings a year after I finished the show. Kingdom is not a show I would normally enjoy. I know for a fact that if Nick wasn't in it, I would have never watched it. I wouldn't want to watch it without Nate, personally. I think it's well-made and the actors did well, but it's not my cup of tea without Nate. Forget that Nick played Nate. The character was just the most endearing character in a sea of toxic masculinity. I do recommend giving it a watch.

Nick Jonas as Brett Land in Goat (2016)

2. Brett Land, Goat (2016)

I went into Goat completely blind. I was just going through Nick's filmography. While the film is a hard watch because it deals with brutal frat hazing, I watched it multiple times for Nick's performance alone. He portrayed Brett Land, the older brother of the film's main protagonist, Brad. The film starts with Brad getting brutally beaten after picking up two strangers at a party that he mistook as friends of a friend. Following the beating, we see a protective side of Brett that comes off as a little vulnerable. At least that is my interpretation of his performance.

Brett Land gave Nick girls "frat bro" Nick. While I am not a fan of frat bro Nick, I will say Brett is the hottest of Nick's characters - and it has nothing to do with his sex scene. Which is ironic because as you may know, I rank Nick last for hottest Jonas Brother. But I find Brett hot because of how much he cares about and wants to protect his brother. He had to watch his brother recover from a brutal beating and then had to watch people he considered his friends abuse his brother under the guise of frat hazing. Brett couldn't stomach the tradition that was done to him and then took part in when he saw it happening to his little brother. So he knew he had to stop it, but not until it was too little too late.

There's a little scene between Brett, Brad, and Brett's best friend, Chance, where you get to see the softness of Brett when he comforts Chance who gets drunk and emotional with the two brothers. Making this another role where Nick brings a vulnerability to that makes it hard to see anyone else as this character. The film ends with Brett and Brad having a moment after leaving the police station after Brad is asked to identify his attackers in a lineup. Brett gets emotional after seeing the pain his brother is still in. He then brings Brad to the place where he was beaten at the beginning of the film. It's a haunting, yet cathartic scene. I very much enjoyed Nick's performance.  His subtle acting choices don't go unnoticed. At least not by me. I hope he knows that. It's one of his strongest performances.

Nick Jonas as Renn Wheeland in The Good Half (2023)

3. Renn Wheeland, The Good Half (2023)

Lastly, let's get into one of Nick's more recent roles, Renn Wheeland in The Good Half. This film's theatrical release was right after I came out of the hospital last year and I got the chance to see it in theaters. I immediately fell in love with this character. Renn is a writer who finally got out of his hometown to follow his dream - though he hasn't achieved it yet. The film follows his return home for his mother's funeral. Helping his sister with funeral preparations, a lot of undealt with emotions rises up to the surface. Broken relationships with his family, and regrets about his mother. All while he befriends a therapist he met on the plane. A perfect coincidence.

I fell in love with Renn when I watched the trailer for the first time. He's portrayed as being so endearing, but also so complicated. My favorite scene in the film is when he does some karaoke. NOW we have the incredibly talented Nick Jonas playing some guy who doesn't sing for a living. I was very intrigued when I first learned of this scene, because how was he going to pull it off? He's far too talented to give a fake bad performance but perform he did. Nick gave us a "good-ish" performance. Renn doesn't sing badly, but I'd tell him to keep his day job. It would be a fun scene in any film, but with the added layer of the character being portrayed by Nick I think it deserves bonus points.

Renn is charming but has so much baggage that you might think twice about taking him up on drinks. Which is why I'm glad the film ended with him and Zoey - his new therapist friend/love interest - not jumping into a relationship despite their feelings and chemistry. But they don't say goodbye, only a see you later kind of farewell. Overall, I loved the film and I loved Nick's portrayal of Renn. I loved the subtleties of his acting choices, as well as when he had to do emotional dramatic scenes. He knocked this role out of the park.

Nick Jonas with brothers, Joe and Kevin Jonas of the Jonas Brothers

You don't see a lot of pop stars become half-decent actors. Not that he's half-decent. I think his acting is great and it's fun to watch. I'd argue Nick is the best actor of the Jonas Brothers, but to be fair Kevin and Joe haven't given us enough roles for a fair fight. Though I do plan on writing about my top 3 Joe roles sometime soon. I am very much looking forward to the upcoming Jonas Brothers holiday film.

Thank you for reading my rambling about my favorite Nick Jonas characters. I hope you have a wonderful week!