Now 23 and living full-time in Los Angeles, Rigney has moved well beyond playing pirates on makeshift upstate stages. But his latest role, as a teenage Bret Easton Ellis in Ryan Murphy’s adaptation of the author’s 2023 autofictional horror novel, is undoubtedly his buzziest yet. In The Shards, Rigney anchors an ensemble of relative newcomers including Homer Gere—the son of Richard Gere, who caught the public’s attention earlier this year on Euphoria—alongside more familiar names like Evan Rachel Wood and Kaia Gerber. Listening to Rigney discuss The Shards, one could almost forget that the series deals in murder, mental illness, and sexuality. Dia Dipasupil/WireImage/Getty Images Raymond Hall/GC Images/Getty Images Jason Howard/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images/Getty Images Gerald Matzka/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images TheStewartofNY/WireImage/Getty Images INFO 1/5That camaraderie has continued beyond the set.