Jean-Luc Bilodeau of ABC Family’s Baby Daddy took some time to speak to YAmag about his experience as an actor on the hit show, as well as his other successful show on the same network, Kyle XY.
Jean-Luc started his career at the age of 9 in a commercial. He officially made his decision to become an actor at 13, when he starred in an independent film. He realized that he had to act, as opposed to just performing in a commercial. He eventually had his first big break on Kyle XY and the rest is history.
BABY DADDY – “There’s Something Fitchy Going On” – Ben suspects Riley’s new love interest is too good to be true on an all new episode of “Baby Daddy,” airing Wednesday, June 5th, at 8:30pm ET/PT on ABC Family. (ABC FAMILY/BRUCE BIRMELIN)
JEAN-LUC BILODEAU, MATT DALLAS
Kyle XY tells the story of Kyle, a boy science experiment (played by Matt Dallas, who this year made a few guest appearances on Baby Daddy) who gets taken in by the Trager family. Jean-Luc’s character, Josh Trager, plays brother to Kyle, and he experiences his own misfortunes throughout the series.
Kyle XY had a lot of firsts for the actor. In his own words, “it was the best project I ever worked on, because it was the First One, First Show, my First everything. I learned how to act on that show, just where I came from the 1st season to the 3rd season it was a huge jump. Just a rewarding experience.” What he misses most is the cast. “They were like my second family,” he reminisces. And for all you Kyle XY fans out there, you heard it here first: talks of a Kyle XY reunion movie is under way and Jean-Luc is in!
According to Jean-Luc, when asked how his two ABC Family shows compare, it’s a bit technical. “For a sitcom, you have a week of rehearsals and on Friday is the live show, but on a one-hour drama you’re shooting all week long; it’s very spontaneous and the hours are different every day,” he tells us. Regarding his two characters, the actor finds them to be similar. “Their situations are different, of course, but they’re similar in terms of their comedic relief in the shows’ situations.”
Baby Daddy is about a young adult bartender, Ben Wheeler (Jean-Luc Bilodeau), who literally gets thrown into fatherhood overnight when a baby is left on his doorstep. “Ben is a lot like myself,” Jean-Luc tells us. “He’s a problem solver, a positive kid trying to find the link between every situation he can, to solve his problems and help everybody out. He gets himself into trouble, gets into tight situations, but he always works himself out and always comes out on top.”
On working with a baby – “I love working with kids. We’ve had three sets of really great babies, and great parents too. We’ll be acting around these kids and the parents just hand them over to us. I can’t imagine giving a baby to some kid in their early 20’s. They’re not your typical babies, they don’t cry, poo, vomit, they’re like genetically mutated out of a Pod, but they’re the cutest kids in the world!”
On the set – “There’s never a gloomy day on Baby Daddy. There’s always something funny happening, and it’s a really fun environment.”
What Jean-Luc wants to accomplish and for people to see – “I want people to enjoy watching my movies, watching my TV shows, and I want people coming back, obviously. To make a good example, follow the right footsteps, and to have younger kids follow mine. Live my life, be honest with people, and pick and choose the best possible projects as an actor. Segue to later in life and become a director and producer, and an all around figure in the film industry!”
His hobbies – “Drummer, love riding my Motorcycle, hunting, fishing, outdoorsy stuff, snowboarding in winter, jet skiing, boating, outdoorsy adventurous stuff all year round. Anything that’s a fun time, I’ll do anything.”
If Jean-Luc would be any character throughout time he would be Chandler Bing on Friends. A lot of Ben’s body movements on Baby Daddy come from Chandler, in fact. Jean-Luc loves using physical comedy, and sometimes it’s too much Chandler so he has to reel it back in, but they’re similar characters. Not a bad figure to base inspiration off of!
JL’s twitter handle is @jlblives.