Belmont Cameli and NHL Phenom Macklin Celebrini Talk ‘Off Campus,’ Olympic Heartbreak and Handling the Hype

“I’m not a hockey player, but I play one on TV,” could be the calling card for several of today’s hottest young actors. Belmont Cameli, the 28-year-old star of Prime Video’s Off Campus, falls into that group — but more impressive is how quickly he’s distinguished himself within it. Ask any Hollywood casting director to name the top up-and-coming talents, and Cameli will almost certainly be near the top of that list. Still, playing a sexy hockey player on TV and being an actual player in the NHL are very different jobs, performed by very different types of guys. That’s what we assumed, anyway, when we brought together Cameli and Macklin Celebrini, the San Jose Sharks’ wunderkind center, for THR‘s Game Recognize Game video series. As their conversation reveals, the pair have a lot more in common than we could have expected. On Cameli: Saint Laurent shirt, pants; Calvin Klein tank; IWC watch; Jack Spade belt. On Celebrini: Won Hundred shirt; Madewell tee. Photographed by Amanda Pratt Of course, we did know that both are in the midst of meteoric rises. Off Campus is hardly Cameli’s first project — the Chicago-area native has worked alongside Robert De Niro and was a series regular on the Saved by the Bell reboot — but his role as college hockey star Garrett Graham has completely changed his career trajectory. He’s currently shooting the show’s second season in Vancouver. Celebrini also has been spending his summer in his hometown of Vancouver, much of it at a training rink. Only 20, Celebrini is already a bona fide NHL superstar. He earned his first Olympic medal this year, winning silver with Team Canada after falling to the U.S. in the gold medal game. And in July, he inked a five-year, $94 million contract extension, making him the highest-paid player in the league at the time (a one-of-a-kind version of his rookie trading card recently sold for $1.28 million at auction). While this is the first time Cameli and Celebrini have met, they had a previous close call. Celebrini was asked to make a cameo appearance in Off Campus. “Can you tell me why the shoot time was from midnight until 3 a.m.?” asks Celebrini, jokingly incredulous. Learning about the brutal production schedule of an actor has him wondering whether he actually has it easy. Cameli is quick to set him straight: “Nobody’s hitting me at full speed.” “Every day, there are kids around watching the practice,” says Celebrini. “They want their stuff signed, and for me that’s really cool because I was that kid hanging around.” Won Hundred shirt; Madewell tee; Our Legacy track pants; Celebrini’s necklace. Photographed by Amanda Pratt “I ALWAYS BELIEVED THAT I COULD SORT IT OUT” BELMONT CAMELI Do you know that we share a common trainer? Barb [Underhill]. MACKLIN CELEBRINI She’s teaching you how to skate? She’s great. CAMELI We came here for two weeks in March for a boot camp during the offseason, and that’s when we met Barb. We have a few mutual friends, actually, because you know [New York Rangers defenseman] Vincent Iorio. CELEBRINI He’s your double. I played with Vinny on the San Jose Sharks for a couple of months. CAMELI I want to ask you the same question I like to ask anyone who plays hockey. What’s the greatest in-game moment you’ve ever had? CELEBRINI Stepping onto the ice at the Olympics was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. Representing Canada, knowing how global that is and how big that tournament is. That was one of the most special moments for me. CAMELI I feel that when we’re shooting, and I got the Garrett Graham jersey on, I step out and it’s a mostly empty rink that they will fill in with fans later with special effects. (Laughs.) It’s kind of something like that. Maybe not completely. CELEBRINI Very similar. Lots of cameras. CAMELI What is something people constantly assume about you that is completely wrong? CELEBRINI I think hockey players in general have a bad rap of not having much personality. It’s just what the culture has always been with hockey, but if you meet some of the guys that play in the NHL, they’re some of the funniest guys. I feel like that really doesn’t get portrayed very well on camera. CAMELI There’s something about the locker room interviews in hockey that are pretty fucking serious. We have tons of doubles who’ve grown up playing hockey and they are a bunch of goofballs. You were drafted first overall. What was draft day like? CELEBRINI I thought I was going to be super nervous and a little panicked. You walk up in front of all those people, and it’s a real raw moment for you. The thing that surprised me most was that I was very calm. When I got picked, it was more exciting than anything. Mine was at the Las Vegas Sphere. It was such a big production that I think it was one of the coolest drafts that they’ve had. CAMELI When did you start playing hockey? How old were you? CELEBRINI I was 3 years old when I put on skates and started skating around the rink. Not long after, I started playing hockey. CAMELI I was 27. CELEBRINI Really? You were 27 when you started acting? CAMELI No, when I started skating. (Laughs.) I was 20 or 21 when I started acting. I hadn’t been a performer. I was an athlete before that. I played football, wrestling and volleyball. When you were a kid, was your dream always to go to the NHL? CELEBRINI That was always my dream. Growing up here, watching the NHL all the time, put it in my head that it was bigger than something that I could do. I was just dreaming about it. When did you know you could act professionally? For sports, it’s a little bit easier because you see all the guys you’re playing against and there’s rankings. “You can say whatever you want about me or people in my life, but it’s not going to affect me because I’m fully aware of what my reality looks like and feels like,” says Cameli. Saint Laurent shirt, pants, loafers; Calvin Klein tank; Maor ring; Cameli’s necklace; IWC watch; Wander socks; Jack Spade belt. Photographed by Amanda Pratt CAMELI Full honesty, I thought I could act professionally before I ever acted. I was a college student and was studying business. I realized that’s not what I wanted. I arrived very quickly at the dream of being a filmmaker. I hadn’t done it before, but I thought I could figure that out. I didn’t know for certain that I would have success, and I imagined it would take quite some time, but I always believed that I could sort it out. But the first time I actually felt like a professional actor was when I shot a horror film in Budapest. It was a really fun shoot for a movie called Until Dawn, which was based on a video game. When was the first inkling that you could get drafted and could compete in the NHL? CELEBRINI I did a lot of interviews from when I was 14 and on. The biggest question was if I thought about playing in the NHL one day. My answer was always that I didn’t think about it very much because I was trying to focus on what I was doing. Obviously, I thought about it. I watched NHL games and dreamed of playing in the league and achieving that goal. But I think juniors — I was 16, so two years back from my draft year — was the first time I started thinking I could actually play in the NHL. CAMELI How old were you when you got drafted? CELEBRINI I turned 18 on June 13, and then the draft was June 30. I played my first NHL game three months later. That summer was insane. It moved so fast. Photographed by Amanda Pratt “NOBODY IS KNOCKING ME OFF MY FEET” CELEBRINI Have you ever had to cry on set? How do you make yourself cry? CAMELI Yes, I’ve had to cry on set. The thing about Off Campus is that it gets pretty heavy. We deal with some pretty serious themes. For me, I don’t have a real good hack beyond the text, so if the script is written emotionally enough, it’ll move me. Some people are better at it than others. There are some actors on this show who are just like, boom. I’m not there. I need to believe it. CELEBRINI Your shoot days are 14 hours sometimes. Do you get coffee or do you do something else to kind of get you through? CAMELI Last year, Ella [Bright] and I were really working close to 80 hours every single week, so when I have big full weeks like that, it’s no coffee in the morning. I’ll probably end up with one or two coffees in a day, but I don’t do the first one until hours into the day. If I start with it right away, I’m going to need another one in two hours. Then I’ll end up having five or six more. Sugar-free Red Bulls are popular on our set. You were almost on our show, right? CELEBRINI Yeah. Can you tell me why the shoot time was from midnight until 3 a.m.? Would that be on a Saturday or what? It was an absurd time to film. CAMELI There is no absurd time to film. You could be filming at any given moment. CELEBRINI Talking about how long your days are, I think being an athlete’s pretty easy. It might be the best job in the world. CAMELI Yeah, but nobody’s knocking me off my feet and hitting me full speed. CELEBRINI That’s true, you could get hurt. CAMELI What does your offseason regimen look like? Is it up to you? Are you designing it? CELEBRINI My dad specializes in sports medicine and science. For the past eight years, he’s worked with the Golden State Warriors. I also have a strength and conditioning coach that my dad worked really closely with, so they put their heads together and come up with a program based on whatever I feel like I need to work on and get better at. I trust them. CAMELI Are you on a pretty strict diet? CELEBRINI I try to eat as good as I can. Obviously, I cheat on it a little bit. Throughout the week, it’s more [about the] routine. In the morning, I’ll make eggs and sourdough toast. I bring a smoothie with me, so I always have something. The days are long. I usually get the same stuff because it’s routine, and I like it. It’s healthy. CAMELI What part of your game are you most focused on getting better and growing over your offseason this year? CELEBRINI Last year, with the Olympics, we played a lot of games. It was the first year where I played way more games than I practiced. In the second half of the year, I didn’t really skate unless it was a game, which was the weirdest thing ever. I’d get off the ice, and I wouldn’t touch the ice until warm-ups of the next game. It was [about] energy. You just don’t have enough energy to even get dressed and get out there. It takes a lot. Especially after the Olympics, that kind of drained you a little bit. That impacts my top speed. CAMELI What’s your top speed? CELEBRINI Last year, I think it was like 22 miles an hour, 21, 20 something. I feel like I got caught, especially with how many games I played. It was tough to feel fresh every night. I’m balancing some of that conditioning with speed work and trying to get faster and have a little bit more pop. CAMELI What I love about hockey is how individual it is in play style. I’m still developing mine. CELEBRINI If this show runs for 10 seasons, you’re going to get real good. Photographed by Amanda Pratt CAMELI The best thing that would help my game right now is being able to transition from skating forwards to backwards and backwards to forwards while having some speed. Not quite there yet. And stopping. I can skate so fast, but I can’t stop so good. I hit the boards at least once a day. At full speed. CELEBRINI Get Barb on that. That should be the first thing. Starting and stopping. CAMELI I can stop on my right pretty good, but I don’t even really have the left at all. Sometimes we’re shooting, and for the camera, I have to do it on the left side. I’m like, “You guys have to move the camera to the other side because I can’t do that.” I want to ask you about the Olympics. In four years when you win, we’ll do this again. What was it like? You’ve lost other big games, but how did you deal? CELEBRINI Obviously, because of the magnitude of the game — USA and Canada, that rivalry, and then the history that went into it. I don’t know if you saw it, but I had a lot of chances in that game. I had a breakaway. I had a couple chances. Their goalie played unbelievably. [When it comes to losing,] I have a very short memory because I’m not really thinking about anything except for what I’m doing. I forget to text people back. It’s just the way I am. Honestly, I haven’t watched the game back. I can’t really let it eat at me just because in two years we have the World Cup of hockey and then another Olympics. CAMELI Is there a part of you using it as fuel? CELEBRINI That’s the way a lot of people have brought it to me, but you may never get that opportunity again. When COVID happened, NHL players weren’t in the Olympics, and also there was a lockout that made the NHL players not play in the Olympics. For 12 years, those guys that would’ve played in the Olympics didn’t get the chance. You never know what’s going to happen. I think about it all the time. I wish there was a better outcome, but to your point, there’s a reason for everything that happens. I’m a big believer in that. There was some stuff to learn from that. It’s like, you do a lot of auditions, how did you handle hearing “no”? CAMELI You can’t really let the “no” affect you because it’s just part of the job. My real job is to procure more work. The job happens when I’m at home shooting self-tapes, memorizing lines, reading scripts, building out characters for auditions. You hear “no” on most of those. “THERE’S ANOTHER LEVEL TO FANDOM THESE DAYS” CAMELI Hype is interesting. You went No. 1 overall, you’re leading the team down there in San Jose. You probably started getting attention pretty young. CELEBRINI Hockey’s a little different than other sports in that way. There’s attention around you, but some of the top basketball prospects or football prospects, there are cameras at every high school game. It’s just a different level. I didn’t have that very much. Then you just kind of get used to it. People are always talking about you, and you can’t really pay attention to it because there are so many opinions out there that don’t matter. CAMELI Especially in sports. You get people critiquing your game, and then on and off the ice. It’s kind of the same with us, too. Being an actor, everybody has something to say about your performance, but then they also have everything to say about what’s happening in your personal life, too. CELEBRINI I feel like that’s a big thing for actors. Do you feel like people are too invested in your personal life? How do you feel about that? Do you have paparazzi following you around? CAMELI There’s been some paps around. That’s all new and kind of strange. Look, if you’re a fan of the show — the thing that I’m so proud of and pour my heart and soul into — then that’s fucking awesome. But the way our show popped, there’s another level to fandom these days, especially with the internet. Sometimes there’s a real venom to the way people put you under microscopes. You feel constantly observed. I’ve been pretty good with handling that. You can say whatever you want about me or people in my life, but it’s not going to affect me because I’m fully aware of what my reality looks like and feels like. A lot of people have really nice things to say, and a lot of people have mean things to say. To me, it’s just all noise. When I see people out, and they come up to say they love the show, that’s always really enjoyable. It doesn’t always go that way. Some people will just run up with a camera in your face and ask for a picture. I’ll be like, “No, hello?” People get excited. Usually, they’re really sweet. What about you? Photographed by Amanda Pratt CELEBRINI While you were talking, I was relating to everything you were saying. Maybe not as much as you, but it’s a different feeling when it’s kids or the people who look up to you. I get that a lot with younger kids around the rink. Usually, every summer I skate at a private rink, but this summer I’ve been skating at a very public rink. Every day, there are kids around watching the practice. They want their stuff signed, and for me that’s really cool because I was that kid hanging around. My dad worked for the Canucks for four years, so I was around some of the professional players. I know how much it meant to me. That’s something that I’ll never really get sick of. But there are some incidents where it gets a little weird. CAMELI Have you ever searched your own name? CELEBRINI I have. Just to see what’s going on. I can’t say I do it very much, but I have done it before. CAMELI Check the temperature. I’ve done it before, too. Right when we started to do press for this show and the noise started up, I did it. It was mostly good and some bad. I haven’t done it since. I’m really protective of making sure that the choices I make, the things that I do and the people I surround myself with are things that serve me. That type of thing doesn’t always accomplish that task. You signed a new contract lately. What was that for? CELEBRINI Five years, $18.8 million a year, $94 million total. CAMELI What was that like for you when you signed that big contract? CELEBRINI It was exciting. The entry-level contracts in the NHL aren’t quite as big as other sports, so this is the first time you make real money. Well, in terms of professional sports. Obviously, a million dollars a year is a lot of money. In terms of the actual contract, it still feels weird because that’s not really why I’m playing. It was a long negotiation trying to figure out what worked best for our young team. Making sure everyone gets paid and where the [salary] cap is going. [It was] figuring out all that data and figuring out what makes the most sense, and we landed on that. CAMELI Has your spending gone up? CELEBRINI No. I mean, it’s been a couple weeks. CAMELI No, me neither. What’s the first big thing you want to buy? Boat? House? Houseboat? CELEBRINI A houseboat would be great. That’d be awesome. Probably a house. I don’t really need anything else. CAMELI I’m there too, honestly. I still have the same closet of clothes. I probably will still have that same wardrobe for a long time. I drive my Honda, the first car I bought. I’ll drive that puppy until the wheels fall off. Having opportunities to make a good living, doing what I love doing, I’ll never take that for granted. I’m just grateful to be in a greater position to help other people. CELEBRINI Did you get a bump from season one to season two? CAMELI Yeah. When you sign an X amount of years for a TV show, there’s one baked in there. It’s commonplace to renegotiate at a certain point. CELEBRINI How many seasons do you think Off Campus will run for? CAMELI That’s a question that, from you, I really like. From a journalist, I’d be like, “You’re trying to dig.” My business answer is Amazon optioned all the books a couple of years ago. There are five books in the first [series]. There are another four [in the second series]. In success, it could run for a long time. We all hope so. Does the kind of money you’re making add pressure? CELEBRINI It’s cliché, but I have expectations for myself with the way I prepare and how much confidence and belief I have in myself. I want to do as good as anyone else wants me to do. I already put that pressure on myself to perform. [We went] into last year with higher expectations on our team, and then going into this year with higher expectations on our team — it’s just going to keep building. But it doesn’t really change what we do on the ice. I’m never going to change what I do because of outside circumstances. That doesn’t affect the game at all. This story appears in The Hollywood Reporter’s September 2026 Sports issue. Click here to read more.