sin bin

Get ready to fall in love with the handsome stars of gay rugby drama ‘In From The Side’

By · 22 comments · Updated on January 26, 2024
Photo Credit: Verve Pictures

We’ve been looking forward to In From The Side since… well, since we first heard someone was making a gay rugby movie!

From writer-director Matt Carter, the celebrated British indie is about two rugby players who fall hard for each other. The trouble is, they’re both in relationships, and the secret affair threatens to tear their lives apart—and their teams.

The story was inspired by the writer-director’s own time in a South London gay rugby club. “Rugby has a rich and extensive culture that has been under-explored on film,” Carter says. “I therefore felt deeply that I wanted to bring this to a wider audience and raise the profile and public knowledge of the existence of ‘inclusive’ sports clubs.”

Related: 10 queer sports movies to awaken the jock in all of us

The feature’s scored loyal fans while playing the queer film festival circuit over the past year, and now it’s finally hitting theaters in the U.K this weekend.

So, while those of us stateside await a U.S. release date or streaming details, we thought we’d tide you over with an overview of In From The Side‘s stars—who happen to both be named Alexander.

Thankfully, they’re both pretty active on Instagram, with plenty of photos that’ll put your mind in the sin bin (that’s rugby-speak for “penalty box”). We’d have them playing on our team any day!

Alexander Lincoln

Prior to In From The Side, London-born Alexander Lincoln had starred in a number of short films, but was best known for playing “Jamie Tate” in the long-running U.K. soap Emmerdale (a.k.a Emmerdale Farm). And when we say “long-running” we mean it: Emmerdale‘s been around since 1972, with Lincoln starring in nearly 300 episodes during his tenure from 2019-2021. He has a handful of interesting projects coming up, including the fantasy Gods Among Us, in which he’ll play God Of Thunder Thor, which sounds about right!

In the film, Lincoln plays Mark, a newer rugby player in the club. When we meet him, he’s unhappily partnered with an emotionally unavailable older man, which probably explains why eh has such wandering eyes in the locker room.

Alexander King

Alexander King is a self-proclaimed “country boy turned city guy,” who is actually pretty new to the world of acting. In fact, In From The Side represents his professional acting debut. King has said he found the project off of a casting call website and won the role after a sizzling chemistry read with his co-star, Lincoln. (Oh, to see that audition tape!) Presently, he has one other project lined up—a thriller called Charlotte: The Movie—so here’s hoping we’ll be seeing much more of King in the future!

Oh, and he has some rugby experience, too, which is good because, in the film, he plays Warren, a seasoned player who’s highly respected among his team. Warren’s in a committed relationship with one of his teammates, which certainly gets complicated after his drunken encounter with Mark.

In From The Side is playing in theaters now across the U.K., with U.S. release details yet to be announced. You can watch the trailer below:

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