Johnny Link plays Will Walter, the steady oldest brother in Netflix’s “My Life with the Walter Boys,” and he built that steadiness out of a life spent proving that being hard of hearing never had to mean playing small. He is an American actor, singer, and stage performer who has worn hearing aids since he was three years old, and rather than hide that fact for a marketable image, he has made it part of how he talks about his work. That combination, a rising Netflix career paired with an unusually direct public voice on disability, is what makes him worth paying attention to beyond just another cast member of a teen drama.
Who Is Johnny Link
Johnny Link was born on January 24, 1994, and was raised in the Batavia and Geneva area of Illinois, according to multiple outlets covering his career. He trained in musical theater at Pennsylvania State University, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts before moving to New York City to pursue stage and screen work. He is a singer, dancer, and musician as well as an actor, a range that shaped how he later approached his best-known role.
He is Hard of Hearing, with what he has described publicly as moderate to severe sensorineural hearing loss in both ears. He has used hearing aids since age three. That detail is not a footnote to his biography. It shapes nearly every career choice he has since made, from the parts he seeks out to the causes he speaks about in interviews.
Early Life and a Musical Theater Education
Growing up in Illinois, Link found his way into performing early, splitting his attention between acting and music. He pursued that interest formally at Penn State, where the musical theater program gave him training in singing and dance alongside acting technique. That triple threat background explains why his early professional credits sit as much in theater and music as they do on screen.
By his own account, Link grew up mainstreamed into a hearing world, meaning he attended standard schools and adapted to environments that were not built with his hearing loss in mind. He has said this experience left him feeling caught between two identities, hearing and Deaf, a tension he later found himself channeling directly into his work rather than leaving it offstage.
Breaking Into New York Theater
After relocating to New York, Link worked his way through stage roles that built his credibility long before Netflix came calling. He performed off-Broadway in “Baby” and joined the National Tour of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella.” Those credits gave him range across musical styles and live performance discipline that television work does not always demand.
The role that seems to have mattered most to him personally was Gomer Jones in “Private Jones,” a musical about a deaf soldier trying to find his place during World War I. Speaking with Goodspeed Musicals in October 2023, Link said the part felt deeply personal, describing himself as someone raised hearing but carrying a Deaf identity, and calling the role one of the few times his craft and his own life lined up completely.
Television Breakthrough Before the Walter Boys
Link’s screen career picked up with appearances on NBC’s “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist,” where he worked alongside Deaf West Theatre, and Apple TV+’s “Dear Edward.” Neither role made him a household name, but both put him in front of casting directors working on stories that took disability seriously rather than treating it as a plot device.
That groundwork mattered when “My Life with the Walter Boys” came looking for someone to play Will, the eldest Walter brother. The character, like Link, is Hard of Hearing and wears hearing aids, a detail the show did not invent around him but that lined up with who he already was.
Landing Will Walter and Finding a Wider Audience
Netflix’s “My Life with the Walter Boys,” based on Ali Novak’s novel, follows Jackie Howard as she moves from Manhattan to rural Colorado after her family dies in a car accident and joins the sprawling Walter household. Link’s character, Will, is a college graduate engaged to his fiancée Hayley, focused on building a career in real estate and business while their relationship strains under the pressure.
The show premiered its first season on December 7, 2023, and returned for season two on August 28, 2025. It has become one of Netflix’s steadier teen drama performers, renewed for a third season that premiered August 6, 2026, with a fourth season already confirmed for 2027. Link stepped back to a recurring guest capacity for season three, according to Wikipedia’s cast listing, while remaining part of the extended Walter family storyline.
For viewers, the appeal of Will Walter is partly that his hearing loss is written in without turning him into a lesson. Link has talked about that choice as significant precisely because it lets young hard-of-hearing viewers see a character living a full, ordinary life rather than a cautionary one.
Speaking Publicly About Accessibility in Entertainment
Link has used his growing platform to talk plainly about what the entertainment industry gets wrong about accessibility. In a March 2023 piece for American Theatre magazine titled “Hard of Hearing Shouldn’t Have to Be This Hard,” he argued that productions need to treat accommodation as a matter of individual customization rather than a single checklist, since hearing loss varies enormously from person to person.
In that same piece, Link pointed to concrete protections available under the Americans with Disabilities Act and through Actors’ Equity Association, including the ability for performers to request ASL interpreters and accessibility training for audition monitors. He framed the industry’s shortcomings less as malice and more as a lack of education, while still insisting that theaters cannot simply claim to value inclusion without following through on it.
He returned to the theme in an interview with the Daily Express, explaining that because he has adapted so thoroughly to a hearing world, most people who meet him do not immediately realize he has a hearing loss at all. He has said that playing Will gave him a way to represent hard-of-hearing and Deaf children who rarely see anyone like themselves reflected on screen.
Personal Life: Husband Matthew Davies
Link is married to Matthew Davies, a New York-based singer, dancer, actor and performer. The two met in New York and began dating in late 2017, sharing their engagement news on Instagram in December 2022. They occasionally post tributes to each other online, including a 2020 anniversary message from Davies describing Link as a source of happiness, growth, and support.
Johnny Link and Matthew Davies married on July 31, 2025, in a private ceremony in Banff, Alberta, Canada, a wedding that was later featured in Vogue Weddings. Both men work in performance, which, by most reports, gives them a shared understanding of the demands their careers place on their schedules and travel.
Net Worth and Career Trajectory
Johnny Link’s exact net worth has not been publicly disclosed by him or a verified financial source. Outlets covering his career, including TheCityCeleb, note that his income comes primarily from his acting work on “My Life with the Walter Boys” and “Dear Edward,” along with earnings from his stage and music performances. Given the absence of a confirmed figure from a reliable financial database, any specific dollar estimate circulating online should be treated as unverified rather than fact.
What is verifiable is the trajectory. Link went from off-Broadway ensemble work and a national tour to a lead role on one of Netflix’s more durable young adult dramas, a jump that typically comes with rising visibility and negotiating leverage even without a public salary figure attached to it.
What Comes Next for Johnny Link
With “My Life with the Walter Boys” already renewed through a fourth season, set to arrive in 2027, Link’s association with Will Walter is likely to continue for at least one more cycle, even in the reduced, recurring capacity reported for season three. Showrunner Melanie Halsall has spoken publicly about wanting to keep expanding the Walter family’s story, which leaves room for Will’s arc, including his relationship with Hayley, to develop further.
Beyond the show, Link’s public statements suggest he intends to keep choosing roles connected to his identity as a Hard of Hearing performer, rather than treating “Private Jones” and Will Walter as isolated exceptions. Combined with his continued advocacy writing and interviews, that pattern points to an actor building a career where representation and craft are not separate goals but the same one.
