Liam Woodrum may be the real-life Troy Bolton. After the California native quit basketball, he fell in love with acting — and most recently made his on-screen debut as Nick Park in Netflix series Geek Girl. J-14 sat down with the young Hollywood star, where we spoke about Geek Girl season 2, the show’s message and how he got his start. Keep reading for our exclusive interview with Liam!
How’s your reaction been to the ‘Geek Girl’ love?
Liam: Yeah it’s amazing, all the messages I’ve been getting have all been positive and all the DMs and the posts I’ve been seeing are all positive — so it’s a great feeling when you work so hard on something and all you want for it is to to do well, thankfully it is, so it’s awesome.
This is one of your first TV roles! What was your experience being on a Netflix set for the first time?
Liam: Yeah I was definitely getting those first day nerves — I’ve never been nervous like that my life. My lips were shaking I was stiff as a board and [director] Declan [O’Dwyer], the first scene I was doing it took a couple takes, he’s like ‘You gotta relax a little bit,’ but we got there. And yeah, it was just getting over the nerves were the biggest part of it and you settle in and everyone’s giving you advice so it all worked out OK.
It looks like the cast got really close!
Liam: We did spend a lot of time together. They introduced me to a Sunday roast out there in London and we had a karaoke night. Me and Emily [Carey], when we were filming in Ottawa, were running around with crazy hats on with Canada and Canada all over the shirts. And even if even if one person was working and the other person had a day off we’d still come to set just to support and have fun just ’cause we like being around each other.
What was it like working with Emily Carey?
Liam: She’s the best. She’s so professional and so good at her job. She’s been doing it for so long — so just being able to watch her work, and her process and how she does everything is an experience in itself. She’s the kindest, sweetest person off-camera so we bonded really well.
Did you get culture shock filming in London as an American?
Liam: Yeah definitely. I never lived in another state let alone another country for an extensive period of time like that. I’m lucky, my mom is a flight attendant so she was working flights to London — so I was seeing her once a week. She would come bring me a little stuff from home and I had a couple friends come visit me and my dad came to set a couple times. So, people from back home came to visit but it was definitely culture shock at first.
Is there anything you miss from living in England?
Liam: The biggest thing I miss from there is just being in in a walkable city. You can just walk to a coffee shop you can just walk to to Boots — which is like our our CVS over here — you could just walk everywhere.
Tell us about your journey into acting.
Liam: Yeah, I was a basketball player my entire life, it was just basketball and nothing else. And then during my junior year of high school — I needed an art credit to graduate and I didn’t want to take a drawing class, so my English teacher from freshman year convinced me to take drama. So, I finally joined and I just fell in love with it. I think right after we did our first one act in front of the live audience, I just, I was hooked. I came home, I was like, ‘Mom, dad I want to be an actor, I don’t even want to play basketball anymore I want to quit,’ and they’re like ‘Just finish out high school and basketball first and get through that and then you can act.’ I’m super lucky I have such supportive parents. So, yeah, it was Mr. Bloom, my freshman year English teacher who got me into it.
Thoughts on ‘Geek Girl’ season 2? What’s next for Nick?
Liam: I have not heard anything yet. I’m crossing my fingers along with everybody else. I hope we get a season two and if we do, I don’t know, maybe we get to see more of Nick’s personal life and get to see what life is like back at home, that would be pretty cool.
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