Most of you will recognize Derek Theler from ABC Family’s hit new comedy series Baby Daddy. Derek plays Danny, brother to Jean-Luc Bilodeau’s character Ben. He previously appeared on The CW’s 90210.
Derek has plenty of reasons to celebrate. Baby Daddy has become such a hit amongst fans that the network has renewed it for a second and third season before season 2 even aired. Along with his cast mates, he participated in a season premiere tweet-off where he was ultimately declared the winner; having gained the most new followers during the event.
We recently chatted with Derek about the new season of Baby Daddy. He reveals what and who we can expect this season.
Check out our interview with Derek Theler:
Pop City Life: How does it feel to have the show be such a hit that it gets renewed for season three before the second season even airs?
Derek Theler: I feel so blessed. It’s really an amazing feeling because I wasn’t working consistently going into all this. So, it’s still great to be able to work at a pilot, have the pilot picked up, which is a first season and have people really respond to it and then work on the second season which we just finished which was absolutely amazing because everyone’s so close with the cast and the crew and then to get re-upped for the third before we were done filming, it was the very last day of our second season shoot, the day where everyone was like oh, we’re really upset and sad and we don’t know if we’re ever going to be able to work with each other again, the cast and the crew, and we get the word that we have a full season three pickup, it changes that day and the rest of our hiatus dramatically. We’re not waiting by the phone to know if we’re going to go back to work with our family. So, it was an amazing experience, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am to know that I get to go back to work with my best friends.
Pop City Life: What originally attracted you to the role of Danny?
Derek: Originally, I really wanted to work on a sitcom. It’s fun. The hours are great. You get to stand up and tell jokes all day, and Danny specifically because he’s a professional athlete. I consider myself an athlete. I played sports my whole life and I try to keep myself in really good shape, and I thought it would be so cool to play an athlete and be able to tell jokes all day and also, to play a character who’s kind of pining for his best friend. I don’t really have any way to relate to that. I didn’t really have a crush on my best friend growing up or anything, but I thought that it was cool and I like to see the stages and how we was developed throughout.
Also revealed:
Q: Are you guys going to have any guest stars next season?
Derek: We have a great lineup of guest stars. We have Matt Dallas coming with Jean-Luc from Kyle XY and Lacey Chabert from Party of Five who plays one of my love interests. Greg Gunberg comes back. It’s going to be a really exciting season with all the guest stars that get to come, we were pretty excited.
Q: When did you decide to go into acting?
Derek: My story’s a lot different than a lot of actors out there. I’m born in Alaska, grew up in Colorado, went to college in Colorado, went to Colorado State and I actually finished my degree. I got my degree in pre-medicine because the plan was to actually go to med school but that did not happen obviously.
So, I just didn’t want to have any regrets. I didn’t want to not take a chance on something I wanted to do because midway through college—my whole life I wanted to act, but through college, I decided that this was the thing that I really wanted—my dream was to work in LA as an actor.
So, I started saving up money through college and my parents were helping me through college. So, I finished my degree for them, and as soon as I saved up enough money, I moved to LA and just kind of went for it and moved here without knowing anybody, and I got very lucky with a couple of commercials and then found great representation and fell into this and I couldn’t be happier.
Q: Has Danny really taken a step back in going after Riley and letting Ben go after her? Is Ben not even going to go after her this season? What’s going to happen with that?
Derek: That’s a good question. There’s a lot happening with the whole love triangle this season. Riley’s never, ever out of the picture for Danny. He does get a real girlfriend and he does go on several dates with other women, but I think it’s just him kind of trying to defend himself and take his mind off something that he doesn’t think he’s going to be able to obtain and he’s always there. He’s always there for Riley if she need anything and the whole Ben question, it is a couple of very interesting episodes where Danny needs to decide if he’s going to help his brother out because he may have some feelings for his dream girl or if he’s going to hold him back. So, you’re going to have to tune in for that.
Q: Do you guys play pranks on each other?
Derek: Pranks, everybody asks these prank questions because we were such a close cast and it’s funny. There are several things that we like to do. I don’t know if it’s specifically towards the rest of the cast, but one thing that we always like to do on our Friday night tape night is steal the golf carts from Hot in Cleveland together. We park them all over the lot and just kind of leave them. It’s pretty hilarious.
We have golf cart races and we mess with each other’s dressing rooms sometimes, steal things out of—especially the three boys. We steal things out of each other’s dressing rooms and it’s fun. It’s a really fun set to be on because it’s not only the cast, it’s the crew too. They really mess with us. When we have props and things, they always try to throw us off during our scene by writing funny things that only the cast would know about like on all of our props, and it’s great. I promise you this next season since we’ve had so many prank questions, we’re going to come up with a lot more for you.
Q: Is there anything you’re working on during the hiatus, other projects that have come about after the success of Baby Daddy?
Derek: The funny thing about this hiatus is it was very short because we’re going back to work here in like a month and a half and I feel like we just got done, so I didn’t have quite enough time to really do something that I wanted to do. One of my goals is definitely break into film and I want to do action movies as well. I want to do thrillers and action, like a superhero movie would be exactly the kind of thing that I really want to work on eventually, but at this time, it’s basically just a lot of promo work for the show and interviews and a lot of photo shoots.
I have a photo in UsWeekly coming out today, which is cool and traveling too. Time off is good. It’s good to see your family, and I’ve traveled a lot in the last few weeks just gearing up to go back to work for a long time for the third season.
We want to thank Derek for taking the time to answer some questions for us. We really appreciate it!
Baby Daddy airs Wednesdays on ABC Family.
If you haven’t already, be sure to follow Derek on Twitter!
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