Casting Net: MTV's Awkward Adds 2 New Gay Characters

After creator Lauren Iungerich left Awkward after season 3, MTV was tasked with finding a new showrunner the series into its 4th season and senior year for much of main characters. The network found two. In an exclusive interview with Jarett Wieselman, Chris Alberghini and Mike Chessler open up about what changes, including the addition of several new characters, are in store.

On the new students enrolling in Palos Hills High School:

"We've got two gay characters named Theo [played by Evan Crooks] and Cole [played by Monty Geer]. As gay writers, it's obviously important to us to have gay characters on a TV show, so we looked at what we hadn't seen on TV yet, and we liked the idea of these gay guys whose sexuality wasn't the most important thing in their lives. They are a bit obnoxious, kind of in the tradition of Stifler from American Pie or Beavis and Butthead -- they just happen to be gay."

The show is also adding a new love interest for Matty (Eva played by Elizabeth Whitson) and Toby (played by Kofi Siriboe), a transfer student from Africa.

On the students graduating early:

"Jessica Lu [who plays Ming] is not returning. She wanted to move on. [Also not returning are The Asian Mafia and Nolan Funk's character, Collin Jennings.]"

On what happens after graduation:

Chessler: "I think you could follow some of these characters to college."

Alberghini: "There's also the all-important summer between graduation and your first day at college. A lot of stuff can happen in that time."

So it looks like there will be studies after high school, let's just hope it doesn't follow the same route as Glee. Read the rest of the interview on BuzzFeed.

Awkward premieres on Tuesday, April 15, at 10 p.m. on MTV.