With the season 2 of BET’s The Quad wrapping on April 3, actor Jake Allyn is still as busy as ever. He recently landed a guest role on NCIS and is continuously working on new projects. In the past, he’s appeared in The Middle, Blood Relatives and held the male lead in Overexposed, which premiered on Lifetime Movies. Allyn took some time to chat with Her Campus about his experience working with his brother, director Conor Allyn, his biggest inspirations in the entertainment industry and his biggest guilty pleasure TV series.
Her Campus: You currently star as BoJohn Folsom, the first white quarterback at a historically black college, in the hit BET series The Quad. Do you think your experience playing football in high school and at Cornell University has helped you with this role at all?
Jake Allyn: Obviously, first and foremost, just knowing the game inside and out helps a lot from the footwork to actually playing football in all those types of scenes to the jargon in scenes where we’re in the coach’s office and things like that. I actually read the script and know exactly what we’re talking about right off the bat. All of that helps, even getting used to wearing football pads. Some actors might have trouble with their lines now that they’ve got a mouthpiece in and a helmet strapped to their head and shoulder pads and uncomfortable pants. Sadly, I’m pretty used to all that. I would definitely say that even more than that is growing up in Texas and playing high school football, and then college football gave me a greater understanding of the full game and its importance within communities and within families. There’s always that classic family that loves football but also needs football economically for their family. They need Bo’s success to save the family. I think growing up around the game, you learn and understand that same importance and how a family could be that way.
HC: Besides The Quad, you’ve held a variety of roles on shows including The Middle, Blood Relatives and NCIS. Do you have a favorite and/or least favorite character that you’ve played?
JA: NCIS is coming to mind right off the bat just because it’s the most recent probably. That was a really fun experience not only for the acting part but just getting to be around a show that’s successful for that long and really just learning from the veterans on the show, such as Mark Harmon and Maria Bello and people like that. Simply getting to sit in a table-read with them and watch them work was very surreal and very cool for me. Mark Harmon could not have been a nicer guy. To see somebody like him who’s been on a show for 15 or 16 seasons and had such a successful show for that long is admirable. When we walked in for the table read, he introduced himself to me like we were making a little pilot. To have that excitement and work ethic is something I hope that I can carry forward that experience.
HC: Even though you went to Cornell University on a football scholarship and majored in history, you’ve followed a very different career path. At what point did you know you wanted to become an actor? Have you ever doubted your choice to become one?
JA: I’ve doubted it many times. I used to think when I would have these self-doubts, “Oh man, I can’t have these doubts because then I definitely won’t be successful.” I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs. You’re mentioning some of the other roles I’ve been in. I’ve been blessed to be able to work a good amount and on those shows, but there’s many roles I’ve auditioned for that I didn’t get. That hurt really bad. I definitely am one of those actors that has the tendency to take some of the rejection personally. Ultimately, our job is to connect emotionally to a character and to a storyline, so to do my job well, I have to become attached to it. It’s hard to break off after that. My thing is that if I have my doubts, I usually take the weekend to watch a few of my favorite films that always remind me why I got into this business. That’s my go-to if I’m feeling down.
HC: You come from a family of producers and screenwriters. What’s the most important thing you’ve learned from watching and working alongside them? Have you received any specific advice?
JA: My older brother is a director, and so the best thing I’ve learned from working with him is just to go for it. Nobody wants you to be better than the director and the producer and the casting director in terms of doing an audition. It’s a nerve-wracking room most of the time and just the experience is a weird one. You need to learn to comprehend that they want you to kick ass and want you to be good. Understanding that really helped me out and just going for it, that swing for the fences mentality. If you’re just okay in 20 auditions, you might not get any of them, but if you really swing for the fences, your choices might be off. You might not get 15 of them because they might think you’re way too aggressive or way too funny, but you’ll find that in the other five, they’ll say, “Wow, he was great. I want to work with that guy.” That’s the approach I take into the rooms.
HC: Who in the entertainment industry inspires you? Why?
JA: Taylor Sheridan and Ryan Coogler are my two dream directors that I’d love to work with. I think they do an amazing job of making just good, enjoyable, great classic movies, while never forgetting that we work in an industry that has to have a mindset to create social change and raise awareness in today’s world. Movies likeWind River that came out last year, or Hell or High Water from Taylor Sheridan, and then a movie like Fruitvale Station from Ryan Coogler, I think are perfect examples of that.
HC: If you could go back and play a character from any movie ever made, who would it be? Why?
JA: Oh man, that’s a tough question. If they remade On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando, I think I would love that challenge. I’d be pretty scared, but I think that would be pretty damn cool.
HC: What’s your biggest guilty pleasure movie or television series?
JA: Don’t know if this is a guilty pleasure, but maybe Friends. You just kind of turn your mind off and laugh. That or Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Let me change it to Always Sunny.