One of our favorite shows on television, Baby Daddy, is FINALLY returning for its season two premiere TONIGHT on ABC Family!
To get the details about tonight’s episode, including clips and stills, click here.
CelebSecrets4U had the opportunity to chat with Derek Theler, who plays Danny on the show, to get ALL the details on this season’s guest stars, episodes, and more!
Take a read at the Q&A below.
It’s great to see Baby Daddy back. Can you talk a little bit about what the trials and tribulations Danny will be going through this season?
Derek Theler: This is a great season for Danny. There’s a lot of great storylines happening with him. He’s trying to figure out what he wants to do with his love life. He’s experimenting going out with different girls on dates, and he eventually finds a girl that’s more of a steady girlfriend for him, and there’s more hockey stuff.
It’s really great to work on a sitcom where they actually bring big sets in and try to make it look like Madison Square Garden. So, that’s really fun. You get to experience the boys trying to figure out how to raise a baby together. It’s pretty fun just to see the three boys together. Since we have the first season out of the way, now you get to understand them a lot more and we even get to go through an episode—a flashback episode where you get to see all the boys in high school and Riley in high school and their mom throwing a birthday party. It was actually one of the most fun episodes to shoot.
Was there anything about Danny that wasn’t originally scripted for you that you’ve added to this character?
Derek Theler: I’ve heard from the writers and producers that my character off the bat wasn’t supposed to be very sweet. He was supposed to be kind of a womanizer, kind of like a professional athlete that didn’t have as much of a heart I guess, and so, I really like the way that he’s changed and the way I’ve been able to try to bring him to life because he’s really likable. You feel for the guy. He’s a sweetheart and he never means to do any wrong. He just accidentally kind of makes the wrong choices sometimes and it takes a little bit longer for him to get it.
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.
Are you guys going to have any guest stars next season?
Derek Theler: 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.
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 Theler: 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.
For Danny and Tucker’s characters together, are there any kind of funny, comedy stuff that the two of you guys will get into, some hijinks or anything?
Derek Theler: The bromance is still definitely there. These two characters are pretty much the only ones who didn’t know each other going into this pilot episode, but yes, they’re buds. They have a cool like bromance connection and I try to set up in the—especially the first episode coming out in the second season, I’m forced to set up Tahj’s character with a supermodel friend of mine and he gets pretty excited about that. So, we go out on a double date, and of course, supermodels are pretty tall usually and Tahj is not. So, that’s pretty funny. Then, another episode coming up soon, we lose one of Emma’s favorite toys and Tucker and Danny have to find a way—it’s pretty much like a Mission Impossible episode to find a way to get this toy back and we think that the neighbor above us stole it, so we actually break into her apartment to try to steal it back for Baby Emma.
Are there any other big things with just your character and Emma’s character, and how much did you work with kids at all before this?
Derek Theler: Before this, I actually—I have quite a bit of experience with kids. I worked at a daycare for a couple of years going through high school and college. I did youth sports camps. I ran all the camps through my college. I was pretty much a camp counselor. I made all my money working with kids while I went through college and tried to put myself through college. So, I have experience. I was very comfortable with kids.
As far as storyline with Emma, Danny’s always kind of there. I had several really nice scenes with Baby Emma and just everybody always gets a couple of big scenes with Emma every couple episodes and it’s pretty much the same as far as evening it out, the baby time, with all the rest of the storyline. So, I don’t think I have any real stories I can remember right now with Emma, but I just know I was holding her at least once almost every episode.
Do you have any additional pleas for your fans for the live tweet off next week. We love your campaign video. It’s hilarious.
Derek Theler: I’m so proud of my campaign video. They begged me for followers with my shirt off. I do though; I’ve taken it as a competition and I’m expecting to win this.
If you guys don’t know, we’re having this Baby Daddy tweet off campaign and we want to see who can gain the most followers by the time the premiere is over, and I think I have a real shot at this. I think I do. I made my campaign video. I have some strong points, but I want to win. I want to gain as many followers as I can and I want to see the rest of the cast humiliated because that’s just the way I am.
Could you tell us how Danny is similar or different from yourself?
Derek Theler: That’s a good question. Danny is very similar to me as far as his intentions, and like I said before, he’s such a team player. He’s always there. He’s the guy that you can really rely on. He’s always the guy that if you’re in a jam, he’s going to come through for you if he possibly can, and I think that’s pretty similar to me.
One of the differences is definitely how long it takes him to get the joke. He’s the slow one of the crew when it comes to understanding the plan, but he always eventually gets it together, but it’s funny. He has a lot of great moments throughout this next season about everybody else understanding what’s happening, understanding the plan and he gets it a scene later. I’m glad to say that that’s not one of my personality traits.
Is there anything you’re working on during the hiatus, other projects that have come about after the success of Baby Daddy?
Derek Theler: 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.
Do you have a favorite behind-the-scenes moment or memory or something that you could share with our readers?
Derek Theler: What I love about our show is if you come to the live tapings, we are there for the fans, and a really cool thing that we almost try to do for every episode is just completely blow a scene, and we’ll throw a character that’s not supposed to be in that scene until the very last take, we’ll throw a character that’s not supposed to be in the scene in there and we’ll just improvise throughout the rest of it and that’s probably one of my favorite things about our show is you never know when that’s going to happen. So, you have guest stars or main characters even popping out of the closets or coming out of the bathrooms and just blowing the scene and then we just work through it and keep playing it up for the audience. That’s my favorite thing that we do on our live tape nights for sure.
There was a moment when I have a date at the house, at the apartment, and I have a very intense emotional scene with Riley, and then, my date is supposed to reveal herself, and during the last take, it turned out to be Matt Dallas and he pretended to be my lover and we just played it up to the audience and we went through the scene way longer than we should have, but that was a pretty fun moment.
There you have it! Make sure to tune in to Baby Daddy TONIGHT on ABC Family! Who do YOU think will win the Tweet off?
