Omar Rudberg actor talks sudden stardom and his boy-band past

At 14 years old, Omar Rudberg experienced fandom in its most extreme form: the adoration of pre-teen girls. “I was at a grocery store and a girl sees me and she just starts crying, laying on the floor, screaming,” he says, recalling a fairly standard fan encounter. As one quarter of Swedish boyband the Fooo (later renamed FO&O), Omar might have reached peak famous before he could even get his driver’s licence. Then, just last year, he became the star of Young Royals.

I am sitting across from Omar at a Spanish tapas restaurant in his current home of Stockholm. It is a seat that many, many, countless girls and boys would practically die to be in. Omar obsession is at a fever pitch and it’s easy to see why. At 23 years old, the guy is gorgeous – the infectious grin, the mop of black curls. On the way to our table, a girl side-eyed him so hard she almost fell over. When he acknowledged her she simply stammered, “You look like someone I know.”

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Omar had “no idea” he could act when he started the audition process for Young Royals, the Swedish Netflix show that would become an international phenomenon. “I was embarrassed,” he admits. “I didn’t even act in front of my mom.” He had been tipped off about the series by his friend, the actress Felicia Truedsson (who wound up scoring a supporting role herself).

When she told Omar about the premise – a Swedish prince falls for another boy at boarding school – he lost it. “I was like, ‘Are you f***ing with me right now? Are you kidding?” he recalls. “Teenagers are going to watch this, and he’s going to be gay? He’s going to be a rebel?” He begged Truedsson for a contact email so he could reach out and ask for an audition. At the time, he had one thought: “I’m going to be that prince.”

He got an audition, and then a callback. Netflix sent over a script. “That’s when I knew what role I was going to play,” he recalls, grinning that infectious grin. “I was screaming. I was like, ‘Oh shit, I’m going to date the prince!’” What’s more, the character, Simon, was going to sing. Omar wasn’t just hungry for the role, he was “starving”. At the time, FO&O had disbanded and his career as a solo artist wasn’t exactly taking off. “You know what I was thinking?” he asks me. “I’m going to get this role as Simon, or I’m going to die.”

Before Young Royals, Omar had 182k followers on Instagram. A few days after the show premiered, he had cracked a million. Omar has plenty in common with Simon, an immigrant kid in a working class family who happens to have the voice of an angel. At six years old, Omar moved to Sweden from Venezuela with his mother to live with a man she had met online (they’re still together).

He can remember Venezuela – the warm air, dancing on tables at family functions – but those first few years in Sweden are less clear. “My whole world changed. It was a lot to take in,” he says. He does remember arriving. Omar’s new stepdad, whom he had met just once before, picked him and his mother up at the airport. “I fell asleep in the car,” he recalls. “Hours later, I woke up on a sofa in his house, where we were supposed to live.” His new home was in Åsa, Kungsbacka, a tiny town on the west coast, near Gothenburg.

There was plenty to adapt to those first few years, not least of all, winter. “I remember once I was told to do a snow angel. So I laid on the ground and I put my arms up, in the air,” he said, extending his arms straight out in front of him. “I did not get it.” Then there was the language. Luckily he had two classmates who also spoke Spanish and a couple of teachers at his school who had immigrated from Latin America.

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At home, he and his mom – who was busy learning English herself – spoke their native tongue. About a year after arriving in Sweden, a friend introduced Omar to YouTube. “He showed me Justin Bieber and Michael Jackson,” he recalls. “I started dancing to Michael Jackson songs. I learned all his songs, all his dance moves.”

A couple of years later, at 10 years old, he started singing, too. “It just came naturally,” he says. He would practice alone in his room, using the PlayStation karaoke game SingStar. Eager to be on stage, he started entering local talent shows. Omar’s mom would record his performances and upload them to YouTube. A record label saw his channel and reached out to his mother for a meeting. They were starting a boy band.

Omar met his Fooo bandmates in a dance rehearsal for their first song. “At the time I didn’t know it, but I actually sucked at dancing,” he says. While Omar had been mimicking Michael Jackson videos in his bedroom, his bandmates – three flaxen-haired Swedes who had known each other before the band was formed – had been in professional dance classes. He was, admittedly, nervous. “I didn’t have a lot of friends in school,” he says. “It was hard trying to be friends with Swedish kids.” The group, which also included successful actor and solo artist Felix Sandman, clicked right away. Their first gig was opening for Justin Bieber.

While the fandom for FO&O was fervent – “It was One Direction-level,” Omar says – the audience he’s found with Young Royals is something entirely different. There’s a powerful obsession, to be sure, but it feels more... polite. “They be tweeting saying, ‘We have to have respect,’” Omar explains. He and his co-star, Edvin Ryding, who plays the aforementioned Prince Wilhelm, have become more than objects of coming-of-age lust, they’ve become heroes. They’ve also become great friends off-screen, much to the delight of their fanbase.

Binge-watching Young Royals, I recall wishing there had been a show like it on television when I was a teenager. Back then, there weren’t any gay high school romances playing out on a hit series. Even today, few have managed to depict a relationship as honest and, well, sexy – the subtle glances, the fumbling firsts – as that between Omar’s Simon and Edvin’s Wilhelm. I ask Omar if he’s conscious of what this show has meant to young queer people. He nods. “It’s unreal, being a part of something that important,” he says.

He gets DMs from fans worldwide, telling him how the show has affected their lives. “When people tell you that from the other side of the world... It’s hard to comprehend.” As fans wait not-so-patiently for season two, which begins filming shortly (“This time, I’m not even telling my mom what happens,” says Omar) they can placate themselves with something entirely different: Omar’s new single. His first majority English-language song, ‘Mi Casa Su Casa’ is awash with gotta-dance Latin flavour and topped off with a catchy Spanish chorus. It’s a bop.

In February he will release another single, ‘Moving Like That’. With the success of Young Royals, there is a built-in fan base, eagerly waiting to hear Omar’s new music. “That makes me so happy,” he says. “I love to feel love, and I love to be seen and I want my art to be seen.” With 1.3 million followers and counting, a reignited solo career and a hit TV show, Omar Rudberg is unmissable. And not only that, he’s helping others to be seen, too. It’s a beautiful thing. “I’m trying my best to say thank you, every day, for the little things,” he says.