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By
Suzanne

Interview with Matt Atkinson of "Jane by Design" on
ABC Family 6/4/12
Although it says "moderator" below, these are actually
questions asked by all different reporters.
ABC Family’s Q&A Session with Matt Atkinson – JANE BY
DESIGN
Moderator: How happy are you with the way the storyline for your
character, Nick, is progressing so for?
M. Atkinson: Every character that you play is going to have a different
sort of path that it takes. I’ve always accepted from the beginning that
whatever role that I do it’s not going to always be what I want.
It’s not going to be what I would do because Nick’s not me. But, I’m
really happy with the way that it’s progressing. I think that the
opportunities that I’m kind of given, it’s so much fun to be able to go
back and play some baseball on camera and to be able to work with these
great actors, in general, no matter what storyline they give me. They
could make me a paraplegic and I would still probably have fun.
So, I’m happy with the character and I’m definitely happy with how the
episodes are turning out. I just got a sneak peak of, I think episode
thirteen from one of our writers the other day and it just looked so
good. There are a couple of just really funny, really fun scenes. So,
I’m just ecstatic with the way that it’s turning out.
Moderator: Are there any surprises that you’re able to share with us that
might be in store for your character this summer?
M. Atkinson: I’m trying not to give too much away, but let’s see. Let’s
just say that these next eight episodes, Nick Fadden doesn’t exactly
have – he goes through some rough patches. I could tell you that.
There’s a few things that might interrupt what he’s always wanted to do
is become a pro-baseball player and that’s the life that has been
planned for him and there are some things that interrupt that and make
him think that possibly he might have to think of something different,
you know, and that kind of leaves him in a weird place. So, there’s
something.
Moderator: What do you think are Nick and Jane’s chances of living
happily-ever-after some day?
M. Atkinson: I think that Nick and Jane’s chances are really good. If you
just take the basis of who the characters are and you forget about any
other kind of motives with the story line or take out other characters
from the story line, then, yes, I think that Nick and Jane are really
suitable together. They seem to – when you watch them play on screen
there’s just this great chemistry and there’s this – I mean just defined
by who they are, Jane is sort of the quirky weird but really passionate
about what she does and really a strong female.
Then you have Nick Fadden who’s kind of just seems to have been given
everything to him but he’s a strong guy and you know, he’s very centered
and he’s very grounded whereas Jane is all over the place. I think
together in a relationship they just work. For whatever reason, they
just work.
So, if everything else didn’t exist then I think that they would be
perfect together. But, you never know, you know. You go through life and
sometimes you meet people that could be right for you but it’s the wrong
time, and then you meet someone else and they’re right for you because
it’s the right time. So, you never know what’s going to happen.
Moderator: What advice would you give a guy like Nick who’s into a
successful high achieving young woman like Jane?
M. Atkinson: Well, don’t kiss Lulu. Besides that I mean just try and keep
up. When there’s a strong, crazy life going on and some female has kind
of got a crazy life then you kind of have to just accept that and let
her spin around and then when she comes back to you, you give her all
the support you can. So, just try and be a genuine, honest person.
L. Winston What is your relationship like with Erica off camera?
M. Atkinson: Well, me and her, we’re just good friends. She’s such a
sweetheart. She’s so talented. I think that the reason in the first
season she had this ankle sprain thing. She almost broke her foot. She
was kind of hobbling around and so, Nick (Roux) would do this too, but
we would just help her. You can’t have the star of the show not being
able to make it to you know where they’re shooting the scene.
So, sometimes we would pick her up and carry her and stuff. I mean
there’s this thing that you have to do, but off set we kind of been just
really good friends. We have a lot of fun. She’s a character on and off
screen. She’s all kinds of fun to hang out with.
Moderator: What has the fan reaction been for you?
M. Atkinson: For the show in general, we have some amazing, wonderful
fans. My fans, specifically, are great. I mean, sure, the fans probably
had the same reaction as I had when I first read the script. But,
everyone makes mistakes and you know that’s something as an actor you
have to kind of accept and you know Meagan playing Lulu, she kind of
stepped in to a role where she has to accept that the audience is
sometimes going to think that she is Lulu and you know they are kind of
going to backlash at her.
For the most part, I’ve gotten support and people saying, “Come on you
shouldn’t have done that.” But, you know, we still want you back
together, which is great. I don’t have any fans – well, not a ton of
fans - that are yelling at me and calling me names but, it is what it is
and I love all of our fans. I just think that for the most part you just
have to accept that there are things that are going to happen in the
script that come your way that maybe you don’t agree with.
But, you are not playing you. You’re playing a character. So, when
people understand that they understand what’s going on. It’s really
tough to see, you know, some actors get caught in a space where they
play a kind of evil or mean person and then they get this huge backlash
that everyone hates.
I don’t think that there’s that big of a deal in general when you look
at it logically from the actually storyline perspective. What happens
with Lulu and Nick is something that’s been destined to happen the
entire first season. Not because it’s Lulu and Nick but just because – I
mean Jane’s been running off constantly on Nick and kind of leaving him
confused.
You just start dating someone and then they constantly keep leaving you
in the middle of dates and kind of running off and lying to you and not
telling you what’s going on. At some point, you just go, I had enough of
this; you need to be honest with me. That was one of those moments that
it is just a huge miscommunication, where Nick’s on the phone and he
thinks that someone is saying that she’s going to go off and have sex
with some other guy.
That leaves you in a moment that goes, you know, you’re hurt, you’re in
pain and this sucks and your relationship is pretty much over. If she’s
going off and doing that what are you going to do? So, he turns around
and Lulu’s there and she’s been hurt and she starts talking about it.
It’s just something that is a mistake that was made by two people, and
you know everyone makes mistakes. So, it’s sort of one of those things
that you just accept and you roll with, you know.
Moderator: Can you talk about what it’s like to be on such a stylish set?
M. Atkinson: Well, the stylish set, I’m hardly ever on. The fashion set
over on eight; that’s an amazing set. The high school set, I mean it’s
still great but it’s definitely not as highfalutin. Of course, they went
to great lengths to make that the fashion – the Donovan Decker set look
come to life and do this amazing set.
I mean being surrounded by something like that, it definitely gives you
security when you walk in to work every day knowing that it’s not just
you that’s on you’re a game, it’s all the other actors. You walk in you
know the set designers, the costume designers; everyone is putting in
one hundred percent into this show.
You know, for a while, that if the show for some reason doesn’t work,
you know that you tried. You gave one hundred percent. You walked in,
it’s not like, well, you know, well the sets kind of stunk, or the
scripts weren’t that good or whatever. It’s like everything is great and
everything is setup for success.
I don’t know. I guess it kind of gives you security and makes you happy
walking in to work every day knowing that everyone else is trying just
as hard as you are.
Moderator: If Lulu and Jane were real life people, which one would you,
Matt, be interested in?
M. Atkinson: If Lulu and Jane was real life people it would be Jane. I’ve
always gone for the alternative or quirky or girls with an edge. So, I
would definitely go for – I mean Lulu’s got an edge but she’s also got a
straight up popular sort of entitled sort of personality, and that’s not
something that I’ve ever really gone for.
Moderator: My other question I have for you is about your baseball
career. It’s kind of ironic that you have so much in common with the
character that you play but we don’t know much about your baseball life.
M. Atkinson: Well, I played baseball for about – I should sit down and
actually write it out but somewhere around ten to twelve years. You know
starting back when you’re playing tee ball and stuff. That’s when I
started playing baseball and then I played all the way through up to
high school.
Then I got in to high school and I didn’t have the passion I had for it
anymore. I don’t think that it has to do with baseball, as much as the
people that I was surrounded with that were playing baseball. So, I just
didn’t enjoy doing it that much anymore. Well, no, I still enjoyed
playing but I didn’t enjoy doing it every single day for hours a day.
So, I think it just became something that, you know, I just noticed that
there were other things that I got more joy out of in life. So, I chose
to go a different path. As far as, you know, you said that everything is
kind of – there are some similarities between me and Nick and I don’t
think that there are that many. But, definitely when it comes to sports
there is.
I played every sport known to man. Like the first three episodes you
have Nick playing tennis and he’s playing baseball and then he’s playing
– they had a scene where he was playing golf, and they took that out.
He’s kind of like an all-around athlete. I would say then Nick Fadden is
a lot better than I am at sports. However, we do look a lot alike.
Moderator: Can you tell us or give us a little clue about what might be
happening between your long term crush with Jane?
M. Atkinson: Yes. Nick and Jane the way that it kind of starts back – it
starts back two months after we left off. It starts after Billy gets out
of juvie. Two months have gone by after the breakup of Nick and Jane. I
could tell you that they haven’t really talked much. You see them kind
of come together and they have a few conversations but they kind of
become very distant people because of what happened.
Which, I think really sucks for both of them and you know Nick is kind
of in this place where he wishes that it wasn’t like that. You get to
see them kind of throughout these couple of episodes relationships have
to be, you know, built back. There has to be something that happens.
Nick and Jane have conversations, we have things that happen through the
storyline that are kind of building not a relationship as in a romantic
way, even though it could be. It’s just a relationship because it’s just
been broken and they have to fix it. They’re kind of going back to the
road.
Moderator: So then do we see you arching in a different direction as far
as maybe pursuing other women in the show?
M. Atkinson: I can’t give you all the details. But, here’s what I can do.
I’ll say that no matter what character you have; the show is on a long
enough timeline. Relationships are going to flourish and then they’re
going to die and then you’re going to have to recreate those
relationships or have a relationship with someone else.
So, it’s unsure to me or to anyone else whether Jane and Nick will fully
be back together and have this kind of relationship and start where they
left off. We don’t know that yet but we do know that just like everyone
they’re going to move on and they’re going to try and work through the
issues.
I would say that Nick Fadden is going to have more issues in his real –
what he’s going to do for the rest of his life and kind of those sort of
important things before he comes to actually dealing with his romantic
issues.
Moderator: Will Nick Fadden be shirtless in any upcoming scenes?
M. Atkinson: I’m serious, for the first ten episodes, I walked up to our
Executive Producer Gavin Polone. I walked up to him every day and I gave
him the Matthew McConaughey line, and I said, “You know, Gavin this
scene today, I think it would be a good opportunity for me to take my
shirt off.” Every single day and they still haven’t made me take my
shirt off. I worked out so hard before I started this show. I was like,
you know what? I look pretty good. Let’s have me take my shirt off, and
they haven’t done it yet. But who knows, it might happen.
Moderator: What’s your most embarrassing memory with the one you liked or
had a crush on?
Moderator: I have so many stupid things that I have done. I’ve always
kind of been a hopeless romantic. But, the most recent I would say is
getting up and driving three and a half hours away after the
relationship was over to try and mend it back together.
Moderator: The title to this conference call was Hot Guys of ABC Family’
Tuesday Nights. Do you consider yourself personally a hot guy or a hunk?
How do you feel about people placing titles on celebrities in that
manner?
M. Atkinson: Well, you know growing up; I’ve never considered myself
that. I don’t know. I was always the goofy guy. I was always the class
clown and the idiot who ran up against walls to make people laugh. I was
never, you know, I’m the hunk; especially in high school. It’s really
funny now, you know, when I get a tweet or a message that says, “You’re
the hottest person in the world. Will you marry me?”
I’m like, where were these girls when I was in high school? When I was
in high school, nobody was saying these things. I can’t be mad and say
that they’re calling me hot, you know. I don’t really mind that. It’s
very sweet and it’s nice. But, I’ve never considered myself that
attractive of a person.
I’ve always based anything that I wanted to do off of talent and skill.
Definitely not off of looks. If there is anything in life that I wanted
– I don’t think that at any point before three years ago I would have
gotten anything because of looks, but apparently I would of, I don’t
know. But, I never got that reaction from people. I was always working
on other things.
Moderator: Did you go to Disneyworld growing up or if you go to
Disneyland now?
M. Atkinson: I did in Orlando. I never have been to Disneyland out here.
I’ve never been, and I really wanted to go. Actually, Meagan from our
show has tried to orchestrate that about five or six times. She wants to
go with the whole cast. That would be really fun because I’ve never
gone.
I have fond memories of going down to Orlando. That was a completely
different kind of theme park. But, it’s still fun.
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