Austin Basis talks 'Beauty and the Beast' Creative Process, More (EXCLUSIVE)

Although J.T. Forbes is quick with the wise cracks, Austin Basis takes his job very seriously. As J.T., Austin has been a critical factor in what makes Beauty and the Beast the unique TV series that it is, owing to a portrayal that plays on both the lighter and darker aspects of a character who's proven to be much more than a sidekick. If nothing else, it's his ability to find that pathos underneath the character's humor that has made Austin a favorite among the fan community.

Of course, the second season of Beauty and the Beast has had its fair share of ups and downs, from erratic scheduling to alienation of some of its fanbase due to some controversial plot decisions. But the series was able to secure a third season thanks, in large part, to the dedication of the "Beasties" -- the worldwide fan community whose passion not only makes the show a weekly top trending topic on Twitter, but whose commitment also draws attention to worthy causes. In honor of star Austin Basis, who was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at a young age, Beasties helped raise over $15,000 for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. In short, Beasties love Austin Basis, and Austin Basis loves Beasties.

Now, anyone who's read my Beauty and the Beast reviews, or has seen any of my live tweets about the show, knows that J.T. Forbes is pretty much my favorite character. On the one hand, I simply identify with J.T. far more than with any other character; on the other hand, Austin Basis does such a wonderful job with the character that the guy is almost impossible not to love. But I always found myself wondering what went into creating this character who, while jovial on the surface, frequently has a lot more going on underneath his occasionally flippant exterior than meets the eye. So when the opportunity to interview Basis presented itself, you know I jumped at the opportunity.

In this interview, Austin discusses some of the choice he made as an actor to try to bring J.T.'s unique personal journey to life on the screen in both Seasons 1 and 2, while also providing a behind-the-scenes account of the creative process, such as his scenes with Nina Lisandrello (who plays Tess Vargas), to some goofy stuff with the show's two main beasts, Jay Ryan and Sendhil Ramamurthy. Full disclosure, this was probably the most delightful interview I've had in my career so far. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I did conducting it:

Credit: Bobby Quillard

It's a pleasure to talk with you! I'm a huge, huge fan of the show. So I just wanted to start off by congratulating you guys on a third season. I love the show, and a lot of other people do too, and the renewal was well-earned.

Austin Basis: Well, thanks. And thank you so much for your in-depth reviews of the show because I think the fans and the actors really appreciate that it's not just a superficial recap, and that it's actually well thought-out. You know, unlike some other reviews that are very basic, and that don't give the choices made by the writers and the actors the full consideration that you do. And obviously, your last piece on JT was a pretty fun one. I mean, I always think that JT is the center of the show! So it's nice to see someone else make the argument too.

It's funny, because I started writing that before I even knew there was going to be this interview. So now, in retrospect, it kind of comes across as pandering. [Laughs] But honestly, I kind of wanted to take a look at the fact that there's this domino effect with J.T., where most of the things that happened had him as a centerpiece.

Austin Basis: Yeah, definitely.

Credit: Bobby Quillard

So how has it been becoming the sort of unofficial leader of the Beasties? I know you're very big on social media and have more of a presence than most. Actually, I'm trying to think if there's anyone on the show who has a bigger social presence than you, and I can't think of anyone.

I feel like it was just a natural thing, because I kind of joined Twitter when the show started, which is interesting because I think a lot of fans of the show joined Twitter because of the show, and because of the presence and conversation -- to join the conversation and not miss out on the fun. I feel like the cherry on the icing of a good episode is the interaction and the recaps and the video reviews, and the kind of stuff that you do. But also the Twitter conversation, the reactions to moments and dynamics on certain episodes. So being active in that, and seeing other shows like that -- like Scandal -- shows where you have this huge online following, but also actors and participants in creating the show who are also participating, almost as a liaison between the show and the audience, is like a separate conversation. It's a TV show, it's a recording. You were done making it a month or three months ago, but when the show finally airs, it's almost like you're experiencing it through the fans' eyes. And that isn't necessarily the case in theater or that type of art. But you get to have that response of an audience that you do have in theater.

So I was really attracted to that aspect, and to connecting as an actor. As an actor who enjoys theater, it's nice to have that connection again, and to be swept away by the passion of the fans, and to be raised up almost to a higher status than I feel like I see myself. It's fun to see how they respond to my interaction, but also to the show, in general. And that has kept me growing and growing, and having contests and doing that sort of stuff, in order to give back to the fans and thank them for their support.

That's awesome, man.

Austin Basis: Yeah.

Credit: Bobby Quillard

Now, from a logistical standpoint, how far in advance do you know where the storylines of a season are going?

Well, the only thing I really knew from the beginning of the show were a few tidbits from throughout the season. So, in the beginning, talking to [writers/executive producers] Sherri [Cooper] and Jennifer [Levin] -- before even any of the other writers were hired in the first season -- I had a conversation about the backstory and the relationship of Vincent and J.T. Were they college roommates? Did they know each other growing up? And the way they described it was that their families weren't necessarily in the picture, so all they had was each other. Even from growing up. So it became a brotherhood. Especially when Vincent's brothers died, it further solidified their bond. It was a lifelong friendship, which is different than friends you make later in life.

But then also there was that big secret that was revealed in the middle of the second season, where J.T. had been responsible for putting Vincent on the list. I didn't know the exact secret, but I knew that J.T. had something to do with why Vincent was a beast. So from the beginning of the show -- from the second episode on -- I, as an actor, have been using that and playing with that secret. I think that's an extra thing that sometimes other actors, but definitely an audience, might not realize can influence or affect someone's execution or performance, because I personally felt that was such a driving force for J.T. And it was a great thing to have as an actor that whole time, pushing almost everything I did -- that guilt that arose from being responsible for Vincent being the way he was, and having to go through what he's gone through. I felt responsible, and I wanted to somehow make good on a mistake I had made, or amend this regret I had, as J.T. So yeah, that I knew. I also knew early along in Season 2 that JT and Tess were going to get together!

Nice!

Austin Basis: But other than that, someone turning into a beast here or there, not much. But you find out about the beasts anyway because they have to do makeup tests and all that. So we knew Gabe was going to be a beast in Season 1 an episode or two into Sendhil [Ramamurthy] joining the cast, because he was doing makeup tests already. [Laughs] So that type of stuff has to be let out in advance. But, for the most part, sometimes I don't even know until the day before when I get the script, what's going to be going on in the episode.

Oh wow! Did you have any Season 3 scripts?

Austin Basis: I do have some information on Season 3, but I can't share anything with you. [Laughs]

Aww, blast. I mean, I kind of figured, because you guys start shooting in a few weeks, right?

Austin Basis: Yeah, in about a month.

Man, getting the ball on the road! It's interesting though, because I thought half the time, "Did they tell Austin that JT was responsible for this?" Because it recontextualizes a lot of how J.T. is acting in the first half of Season 2 and the back half of Season 1. There's a chip on his shoulder almost. But I find it interesting because, on the one hand, he has this pathos about what he's done to his "brother," but then he's kind of this funny, jokey guy. How do you play the contrast between the two sides of JT's personality?

Austin Basis: What's been great about the character is the way the writers have created and presented J.T., and have allowed me to contribute to that too. Like me, they understand that all that joking comes out of a tension, and also a need to relieve that tension, because the show is so dramatic, especially in Season 1 but also towards the end of Season 2. There are such high stakes. Like, the whole of Season 1 was life or death circumstances. Early on, J.T. and Vincent needed to stay off the grid because if they popped up anywhere, they could be killed by whatever organization, namely Muirfield, that was hunting them. So it was a matter of life and death, and preventing that. So, in that circumstance, what else do you have other than humor or wise cracks to lighten the load they were forced to bear for their whole existence? It comes out of nervousness but it also comes out of J.T.'s genuine need to make Vincent feel better, and to make himself feel better, and to make light of otherwise pretty morbid and dreary circumstances.

I like the balance, but hopefully we'll never have to deal with too many characters that don't have a full scope of emotions or a full personality, because what I try to bring and what I try to look for, as an actor, is the gamut of all that stuff. Of all the human emotions and reactions that anyone in life would have. I liken it to going to a funeral. You know it's a very dark and depressing and mournful place. But when you're at your lowest, what else is there but to remember a funny story about the person who passed, or to recount a story that kind of makes fun of that person? Or something to that effect. Even in the worst circumstances in life, there is levity, and there is something to be gained from it. As J.T. has progressed throughout the season, and even into Season 3, I think there's less of that darkness and that pressure on his shoulders. For example, he's getting to have a relationship with Tess that he wouldn't have normally been able to have because of his neuroses and paranoia before.

Credit: Bobby Quillard

Absolutely. And I feel the comparison is apt. Although I kind of feel J.T. is worse off, because at least at a funeral, everything is on the table. No one's carrying this secret weight that they're covering up with humor. But that makes him a richer character, and I love that about him. But taking into account the JT and Tess storyline -- this is kind of the first time J.T. has had his own storyline, where it's not about how he's contextualized by Vincent or Cat or what they're doing. It's just very much his own thing with Tess. So how did you approach this storyline with Tess?

Austin Basis: Well, J.T. had that relationship with Sara in the first season, and it was adversely affected by everything that was going on with Vincent and, in turn, Catherine. And it actually sabotaged the relationship. Or rather, J.T. let it sabotage the relationship. Because, in those last couple episodes, he was supposed to meet her parents and get to that next level. But in retrospect, I feel like J.T. used [Vincent] as an excuse to not take that risk, and not take that leap. There was some sort of comfort in the fact that he was needed, and wrapped up in Vincent's drama. But then, coming into Season 2, by virtue of Vincent not being there, he started to have to -- out of a survival tactic -- start to find himself and deal with life by himself.

So, in finding Tess and pursuing his relationship with her, I feel that the challenge for J.T. was twofold: to form your own relationship with a person, independent of the life you've known for the past ten years, and then learning how to manage your life -- and that relationship -- without it being adversely affected by Vincent's stuff. So the question was, "Can I have a relationship on my own, without Vincent?" And then, "Can I maintain it healthily without all the stuff that's going on with Vincent adversely affecting it in a negative way that's going to sabotage it, or provide me with an excuse to sabotage it?"

So now that we're in a relationship and pursuing it, how do we keep it in a separate and independent world from everything that is VinCat? I think both JT and Tess have that same dilemma. How do they have their own thing without being swept away by what is normally the main plot of the show. [Laughs] Now, they will be swept away by it, but the question is how they balance that in regards to their own relationship.

Credit: The CW

Very nice. So were those some of your favorite moments to film from this season? And what were some of the bigger challenges?

Austin Basis: Well, one of the biggest challenges was the scene where J.T. basically confesses to Tess. That's challenging on its own, but what makes it doubly challenging was that I had to put an IV in Vincent. [Laughs] And, you know, going into that day, I'd only watched YouTube videos. So the actual semantics of having to do it, and trying to do it correctly and quickly, was a juggling act as an actor. It was a challenge as an actor -- and also as a character -- to try to do that, and balance the performance with the withholding or releasing of whatever emotions I had at the time. That was hard, and I don't know how self-judgmental I was. I wasn't as critical as I could have been. I wish I'd been more adept at putting in the IV, or that I'd been a little more rehearsed beforehand, and not felt the pressure of having a medical tech on hand to make sure I was doing it right, or for them to be filming it the whole time so that I had to be doing it right. Forget about my lines, I had to get the medical stuff right! [Laughs] That would probably be the one scene where I'd go back and try to execute it a little better.

And then, I think the most fun stuff -- this season, at least -- was always the stuff that Nina [Lisandrello] and I got to do with J.T. and Tess. It always found its way to being the most three-dimensional scenes that included both comedy and drama, sometimes equal amounts of both. I liked that it came out of a tension and an anxiety about what was going on with Vincent and Catherine, but also was generated by the fact that both characters weren't necessarily comfortable. I think, if anything, that J.T. was more comfortable with it, but was not necessarily the most tactful about it. Because he wasn't necessarily experienced, but he was willing to take the leap. He was the one that had to pursue it in order for Tess to fold under pressure. [Laughs] Those were the most fun, the Thanksgiving episode and "About Last Night". Those were the most fun to film, those big scenes with J.T. and Tess.

There was other stuff I had fun doing, like the scene where J.T. and Tess were playing the heroes, and trying to follow the trails and do all that mystery stuff. J.T. had a hangover and Tess was just being Tess, trying to get him up and snap to. We had fun with that scene. But I think it's fun when you get the two of us, the three of us, or the five of us last season, to come together. Whether it's two actors together or one actor and the crew -- like for a phone call -- and it comes together, there's this nice sense of accomplishment. And when it comes across to an audience in a positive way, and when the chemistry works and the balance is right, there isn't really anything better than that. It's a nice stepping stone to the next time that gets to happen.

Credit: The CW

In talking about the chemistry, I wonder if there's anything you guys do to hone that chemistry. Do you hang out offset, or run scenes together off the clock?

Austin Basis: Nina and I have run scenes together. But I think, for the most part, I've been in situations where it's been both. You run the lines offset, you hang out offset, and that contributes, but it's not necessarily correlative. If you guys have fun together and hang out offset, you're not always able to bring that into the chemistry on-camera. And vice-versa. If you hang out on-set and you have a lot of fun, but you hate each other offset, it's not necessarily going to work that way either. It's tough to pinpoint the reason for chemistry working, but I would have to cite two things. One, is that the more of us that are in a scene together, the more ridiculous the off-camera or on-camera stuff gets. There's a lot of high stakes drama, and melodrama too, because it's romantic and supernatural, and there's lot of fight stuff. But sometimes we're dealing with talking with Jay, and he has dots on his face. [Laughs] And sometimes there's a lot of dialogue we need to get out in a short time, so it's not the easiest thing.

But if it were too tense, you wouldn't be able to be free as an actor or as a cast to come up with spontaneous choices. Whereas with us, there's so much laughing and so much making fun -- I mean, I can't even tell you the amount of times that Jay, off-camera, is screwing off even in the middle of the scene. [Laughs] And we're having to hold it together and balance our scenes. And then sometimes there are jokes in the scene that make us laugh and we have to do it again. So I'm equally guilty on both sides, both of making the jokes and laughing on camera. But I think that adds the sense of camaraderie that comes across, independent of the tone of the scene, whether it's comical or dramatic. And I think the other thing is just the fact that -- and it was similar with the other show I did, Life Unexpected, in Vancouver -- where we're, for the most part, non-Canadian actors working in Canada. And the writers are in LA. With both shows, that was the case. So there's this need to bond as a cast, and even the producers and the crew too. There's a team that forms, because we have to communicate as a unit to the unit in LA, whether it's the studio we work for, or it's the writers. You need to come together and have some sort of chemistry for things to flow smoothly.

But I think, because we shoot in Toronto, especially with the second season, outside factors affected everything. The winter was freezing. The winter was way worse than it was last year, and last year wasn't that great. We did way more outside last year though. Even the hours were worse in the first season. But in the second season, we had a crew that I think gelled in a way that -- with the winter, and the ratings being what they were, and the schedule changing -- we had nothing else to do but the best work possible, and to come together to do it and withstand it together. The camera crew and the sound crew, and the people that had to be out there working while we were in front of the camera, that was probably the toughest stuff. And the guys that are the grips, they're moving stuff. And there were the props people who were freezing their butts off and working crazy hours. I think that all bleeds into the show coming across the way it did, especially in the face of the adverse conditions we had to face this season as opposed to last. The winter, and the schedule, and the ratings, and the fear and challenge of the possibility that we may not get picked up. We were fighting a little against the current, but we were doing it together.

Credit: Bobby Quillard

That sort of ties into my last question. When did you find out you were coming back? When did you get the call?

Austin Basis: I actually got the information through my wife. My wife read it online, but just as she read it, I got a call from my agent to tell me before it was announced publicly. But I guess it was announced publicly. [Laughs] So that was nice, and it was almost literally a week to the day after we wrapped. Well, after I wrapped. Most everyone wrapped on Thursday. I think the last shots were those flashback shots of the 1850s. And then Kristin and Jay and a couple of the crew went to New York to film those last pickup shots from Chinatown in New York, and U.N. shots, and then that last scene on the bench between Vincent and Catherine. That was actually the last shot of the season.

How poetic!

Austin Basis: It was funny, because we were actually trying to decide what to do with our stuff in Toronto. We all were moving out and giving up our places, and the question was, "Do we leave our stuff here? Do we leave our cars here? And fly back home knowing that we might have to come back [for pickups]?" So I'm glad we shipped our cars out, because we finished May 1st or May 2nd, and we won't start until the end of August. And you know, that's a long time. But it was nice to know so quickly after so that it allowed this three months that we've had off in LA to be about other things aside from what my life usually is, which is getting the next job or finding an audition. Even though I have auditioned, it's not so much of a pressure because I know I have work promised to me later in the year. So the pressure is not so much on, and I can see my friends and family, and enjoy life in good weather, living in the country where I was born. [Laughs]

Well, congratulations on getting the show back. It really is fantastic and we're so glad to have it.

Austin Basis: Thank you! And thank you for your support. I think the fans really enjoy reading your reviews and recaps, and I think, in a way, that you sometimes get some interesting insights into what we've done that we might not have known ourselves. Sometimes we do, but I think it takes a keen eye and a depth writer to express that. I just want to thank you and commend you for the job you do, and to express that.

Thank you. I appreciate that so much, you have no idea. Seriously. But again, looking forward to Season 3 and seeing how it turns out.

Austin Basis: Oh yeah, there are definitely going to be some interesting things. Obviously, I don't know all of the stuff, but what I have heard has been really fun, like what [executive producer] Brad Kern has said in some interviews he did, we're coming back to what got us successful in the first place. Giving the fans what they want, but also raising the stakes and giving them even more than what they want, and going the extra mile to keep them on their toes. Because, again, just being about Vincent and Catherine kissing and saying how much they love each other, and making love for 13 episodes. [Laughs] There will be more to it than just that. It's stuff that we think the audience is really going to take to. And hopefully, we'll get some audience back we may have lost over the years.

Well, best of luck with everything going forward. Thank you for everything!

Austin Basis: You too, have a great day.