Noah Centineo Recalls All The Boys Fans Tracking His Flight And Following Him Home

Noah Centineo as Kovinsky in To All the Boys I've Loved Before
(Image credit: (Netflix))

Noah Centineo’s life changed the moment To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before debuted on Netflix back in summer 2018. In just a week, his social media follower count went from 300,000 to 11 million. The former Fosters actor became a huge star as the rom-com based on Jenny Han’s bestselling series dazzled streamers. The 24-year-old actor is getting ready to move up to the DC universe as Atom Smasher in Black Adam and play He-Man in Masters of the Universe, but first he’s reflecting on where it all started.

Noah Centineo’s breakout moment turned the actor into an instant Hollywood heartthrob, something he never expected when he signed on to play the Kovinsky to Lana Condor’s Lara Jean. That job description often comes with a crowd of screaming fans, which the actor apparently experienced early on. According to Centineo, shortly after To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before was released, he was located by five fans to JFK International Airport, where he landed and they had tracked him from.

While speaking to GQ, Noah Centineo recalled how the five fans (two guys and three girls) “scared the shit” out of him at the New York airport after he noticed their too-close-for-comfort presence while he was looking out for his luggage. When he decided to strike a conversation with one of the guys who was standing dangerously close to him and ask about his flight, he said something like this:

Oh, no, we didn't fly. We came here for you.

Welp, that’s super terrifying. It does get a tad worse too. After finding out the five All The Boys fans had tracked him to the airport somehow, they proceeded to try to follow him home too. Thankfully, Noah Centineo had a good driver to whisk him away when he turned out to be equipped to deal with the situation. As the actor remembered it:

He goes, ‘Don't worry, I've driven Angelina Jolie. I know how to do this,’ I got lucky.

The story does give us a peek into just how massive To All The Boys became right away. Being stalked and followed isn’t something one imagines will happen when signing up for a coming-of-age role, but it's a rare anomaly that Noah Centineo has been blessed and cursed with. To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before has become one of the most celebrated rom-coms of the decade, and it will come to an end next month with Always and Forever. The Netflix trailer just dropped:

Always And Forever will officially wrap up Lara Jean and Peter Kovinsky’s love story as the pair gear up to head to college. We’ll have to wait and see if the couple’s plans for the future end up aligning when To All The Boys: Always and Forever premieres on Netflix on February 12. Check out Netflix’s full 2021 movie calendar here on CinemaBlend.

Sarah El-Mahmoud
Staff Writer

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.