Was the “Off Campus” Cast Aware of What 'Smut' Is Before Making the Sexy Series? (Exclusive)
Was the “Off Campus” Cast Aware of What 'Smut' Is Before Making the Sexy Series? (Exclusive)
Julia MooreWed, May 13, 2026 at 9:28 PM UTC
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Jalen Thomas Brooks as John Tucker, Belmont Cameli as Garrett Graham, Ella Bright as Hannah Wells, Stephen Kalyn as Dean Di Laurentis and Antonio Cipriano as John Logan in "Off Campus"
Credit: Liane Hentscher / Prime
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Off Campus stars Antonio Cipriano, Stephen Kalyn and Jalen Thomas Brooks tell PEOPLE how much they knew about BookTok and the popularity of "smut" before they were cast in the series
An adaptation of Elle Kennedy's 2015 book The Deal, season 1 of Off Campus focuses on the unexpected romance between Hannah, played by Ella Bright, and Garrett, played by Belmont Cameli
Off Campus is now streaming on Prime Video
Did Antonio Cipriano, Stephen Kalyn and Jalen Thomas Brooks know what they were getting into when they were cast in Off Campus?
Season 1 of the Prime Video series, which is an adaptation of Elle Kennedy's The Deal, follows the unexpected romance between songwriter Hannah (Ella Bright) and hockey all-star Garrett (Belmont Cameli), as they make a mutually beneficial deal that quickly becomes more complicated than planned.
Cipriano, Kalyn and Brooks round out the cast as Garrett's best friends, housemates and hockey teammates, Logan, Dean and Tucker, respectively, all of whom are the focuses of the next three books in Kennedy's series.
Cipriano, 26, tells PEOPLE that when he was cast to play Logan, "I didn't know the magnitude of the fan base yet or BookTok or anything. I didn't even know what BookTok was."
Kalyn, 28, meanwhile, tells PEOPLE he knew somewhat what he was getting into when he was cast as Dean. "Smut's pretty popular," he says. "Who knew?"
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Like Cipriano, the whole BookTook world — and smut, which is the moniker for romance books containing explicit sex scenes — was foreign to Brooks, 24. "I didn't even know what smut was," he says.
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Kalyn was at an advantage, thanks to his fiancé, Victoria Lovatsis. "My fiancé tells me about all this stuff, so I guess that's how I know."
There's no question that all three of them learned a lot more about the BookTok world while making the show last summer, but Cipriano notes that the cast understood the magnitude of the fanbase as they went into production — and did everything they could to meet their expectations.
"We were very aware of how important [this story] was to a lot of people, and we have a responsibility," he says. "And we're really excited."
Antonio Cipriano as Logan, Stephen Kalyn as Dean, Jalen Thomas Brooks as Tucker and Belmont Cameli as Garrett in "Off Campus"
Credit: Courtesy of Prime
For season 1 leads Bright, 19, and Cameli, 28, there are quite a few steamy moments, but Bright tells PEOPLE, "What always stood out to me was just how character-driven and meaningful these sex scenes [are]."
"I really do feel like they're so earned through the whole story," she says. "And we had such great conversations with each other, with the team, with our intimacy coordinators, and everything's choreographed, and it was a very safe and comfortable environment to be in."
Off Campus is now streaming on Prime Video.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
