Disclosure – I was invited to the #ABCTVEvent. Costs and expenses for my trip were covered by Disney/ABC but all opinions expressed are my own.
Last month I shared with you some of the things I learned from my roundtable interview with the producers from The Real O’Neals. Today I am going to share with you some of the FUN and INTERESTING things I learned from some of the cast including Jay R. Ferguson, Noah Galvin, Mary Hollis and Matt Shively.
My second roundtable on that day was with Mary Hollis ‘Jodi’ and Matt Shively ‘Jimmy’. If you don’t watch the show, Mary plays Aunt Jodi’s who’s connection to the family is more about proximity than blood! Matt plays the oldest child of the O’Neals who is the popular kid at school who seems to have it all!
One thing we noticed right away is that Matt’s hair in person doesn’t look anything like his hair on the show and we had to ask him about it.
Here is what Matt Shively had to say about his hair.
I’m 25 and I had just turned 25 so I was having a quarter life crisis and I thought I looked hip with slicked back hair. And yeah, watching it back I’m was like, no it’s terrible. And I spent the whole first season trying to get them to change it. Especially because in the tag of the pilot they would say like that’s a bad thing, but they said, they were like no, that’s one of the main reasons why we loved you.
We actually talked with Matt for a couple minutes about his hair. Then Mary shares with us that she likes karaoke and showed us a picture on her instagram picture of a fun night that the cast had when they went out and Noah and Matt grab her on each side because they thought she was going to fall.
Matt shares with is that he has worked with plenty of people and this is the first time there’s not one weak link in the cast. He admits “Usually you have one person you work with where you’re like, hmm, they’re hard to work with. I’ve never worked with such easy people. Not, no offense.”. Matt tells us that the cast hangs out all the time. That they hang out every Tuesday and live tweet during the show.
My last roundtable interview was with Noah Galvin and Jay R Ferguson which was also a ton of fun and very interesting as well! It is not very often you get to sit at a table with one of the heartthrobs from your Teen Beat magazines when you were a teen!
In The Real O’Neals Jay R Ferguson plays ‘Pat O’Neal ‘ the dad who is also a cop that loves his city, his family and the Bears! Then we have Noah Galvin who plays ‘Kenny O’Neal’ the middle child who is smart and also came out to his family that he is gay.
When talking with Noah Galvin about the show and his role he shares “I had hoped that our show is like a big, you know, force, driving force in normalizing gay adolescence.“. Next Jays mentions that one of his big dreams for the show is to certainly win over people that may have thought they wouldn’t like the show or respond to the show.
Jay tells us that his whole family is deep Southern Baptist raised in church and would not have watched the show if he wasn’t on it but they gave it a chance. When asked about their response to his show, he said “Oh no, to the hearts and minds have already been changed and that’s what I’m saying is that, that you know you can really change hearts with laughter and I’m a firm believer in that philosophy. And also self-deprecating humor is fantastic”.
We had to ask Noah about why he took on the role of Kenny O’Neal.
You know I’m an actor and I didn’t have the luxury of being this job by any means. The audition process for me was, like, two months. It was really grueling and I, like, fought for this job really, really hard. So, you know, when people are like, “How did it come to you?” I’m like, “Well, I worked my ass off for it.” And like it’s not really something that I had any decision in. Once I got it, I got it. And I think the decision for me then was like choosing to come out and be an openly gay person playing this gay character.
To find out other questions and more about the The Real O’Neals be sure to follow the hashtag #ABCTVEvent on social media where you can find other FUN questions that were asked to the cast.
Be sure to watch The Real O’Neals TONIGHT for episode “The Real Retreat”.
When Jimmy is unexpectedly named Faith Leader for the weekend at the Catholic Youth Retreat, a jealous Kenny decides to take on his older brother’s role as ring leader of the bad kids. Home alone without the kids, Pat invites a new lady friend over, and Eileen can’t help but enlist Jodi to spy on them, with surprising results
Take a peek at the trailer below:
For clips and to watch past episodes visit: https://abc.go.com/shows/the-real-oneals
Watch The Real O’Neals on Tuesdays at 8:30|7:30c on ABC
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