• By Nick Patel
• 04 Oct, 2026
• Drama Series

‘Younger’ Star Nico Tortorella Goes Vertical in ReelShort’s Steamy Lyonesse Trilogy, Now Streaming in Full

Nico Tortorella, the Younger and Scream 4 actor, has gone vertical. He makes his microdrama debut in ReelShort’s adaptation of Sierra Simone’s best-selling Lyonesse Trilogy. All three installments, Salt Kiss, Honey Cut and Bitter Burn, are now streaming in full on the app.

It’s a notable casting for the format. A recognizable TV name is joining two of the space’s own rising stars in a queer, kinky, unapologetically adult romance, the kind of story Simone says other studios were hesitant to take on.

A love triangle that refuses to stay a triangle

Simone’s trilogy is a modern retelling of the Tristan and Isolde legend. Jake Lively plays Tristan Thomas, a wayward soldier fresh out of the army. He’s hired as the bodyguard of Mark Trevena (Tortorella), the cruel, amoral billionaire who owns Lyonesse, Washington, D.C.’s ultra-secret club. Tristan falls hard for his boss. Then he’s asked to protect Mark’s fiancée, Isolde Laurence (Katelyn Rose), whose family is forcing her into the marriage. Entertainment Weekly, which first revealed the casting in August, called the result “quite the salacious love triangle.” As Collider points out, the books throw out the classic triangle in favor of all three falling for one another.

“The Lyonesse Trilogy was always meant to be experienced as one complete, interconnected story, which makes seeing all three books adapted together especially exciting,” Simone told EW. “Mark, Tristan, and Isolde’s journey is packed with tension, desire, and emotional turmoil, and I’m thrilled for audiences to experience every turn of their story in a new vertical format.”

The three parts rolled out across September: Salt Kiss on Sept. 6, Honey Cut on Sept. 15 and Bitter Burn on Sept. 24.

Why a Hollywood actor went vertical

Tortorella was candid with Collider about the move. After the pandemic and the 2023 strikes, he said, “the majority of my friends who are established actors haven’t been working the last few years, and the only actors that I really saw that were consistently working were doing these things called verticals.” He reached out to his former Walking Dead: World Beyond co-star Robert Palmer Watkins, who works regularly in verticals, and started taking meetings. Before long, ReelShort brought him Salt Kiss.

Making the whole trilogy at once meant an unusually long shoot. Tortorella called it a “marathon of 26 days — which is unheard of in the vertical space.” By comparison, Lively told Collider that his longest stint on a single vertical had been about 10 days. Lively is one of the format’s busiest leads, with “over 25” dramas by his own count. Rose, who has been acting in verticals for about a year, says her character is no damsel: “She’s intense! I mean, she’s a nun, but that girl is a killer — they call her a ‘knife wife.'”

Simone said ReelShort didn’t hesitate over the material. “The fact that there was not even a blink about the queer content, that there was not even a blink about the story being really kinky, was really attractive to me,” she told Collider.

What’s next for the cast

None of the three is slowing down. According to Collider, Tortorella is in production on a new drama for Shortical. Lively and Rose reunited for another two-season vertical about a week after wrapping Bitter Burn. Lively has also been playing Landon King in ReelShort’s adaptation of Rina Kent’s Legacy of Gods. If you want more Katelyn Rose right now, she’s in ReelShort’s My X-Ray Vision Sees Right Through You, currently No. 16 on our Vertical Charts rankings.

The bigger story is that book adaptations and established actors are pushing microdramas toward the mainstream. Citing research firm Omdia via Reuters, EW reported that the format is projected to earn $1.5 billion in U.S. revenue this year and nearly $2 billion in 2027. Follow the stars driving that growth on our performers page, and see what’s trending this week on the full chart.

Note: the Lyonesse Trilogy is adapted from adult romance novels and contains mature themes.

Sources

• Nick Romano, “‘Younger’ star Nico Tortorella breaks into microdramas with spicy, queer Lyonesse Trilogy adaptations (exclusive),” Entertainment Weekly, Aug. 22, 2026, via Yahoo Entertainment
• Carly Lane, “This Steamy Romance Trilogy Is Officially Launching a New Era for Verticals,” Collider, Sept. 24, 2026, collider.com
• SoaplandTV, “Nico Tortorella Stars in Salt Kiss as ReelShort Adapts Sierra Simone’s Lyonesse Trilogy,” soaplandtv.co.uk