Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images
With Awkward's highly anticipated premiere tonight, we're prepping to join MTV's favorite outcasts as they wrap up high school with prom and graduation and lots of other teen tributes. Last year, we met jokester Cole, played by Monty Geer, joined the gang at Palos Hills, and we instantly fell for the sassy, gay quipster that was desparate to join the ranks of the other misfits.
We caught up with Geer to get his take on this season, and we quickly realized that his humor isn't that different from his character's. Here, he tells us why he'd choose to marry co-star Beau Mirchoff, what he stole from the set after they ended shooting the season, and his new love for scuba diving.
Out: Before I start asking you all about Awkward., I have a couple questions I have to ask you. If you weren't an actor, what other job do you think you would be pursuing?
Monty Geer: Wel, I love writing and I'm actually in the middle of writing a couple show pilots, but that doesn't count because that's still in the same field. So instead I would want to be a skydiving instructor. Or a whitewater rafting instructor. Basically anything that gets my adrenaline pumping.
Wow! That's very different from acting. What's been the craziest adventure you've done so far?
Scuba diving! It was actually terrifying. It was about two years ago here in L.A., and you first practice in a pool and it's cool and easy I was, like: "Oh, I totally got this." But then they take you out in a boat on the open water, with literally nothing around you and they tell you to jump in. So I jumped in and started freaking the hell out. All you see beneath you is blackness and you're freaking out because of all the seaweed and shit around you and you're breathing underwater and you know why but, at the same time, you don't really realize how it's all working. It was awesome. I've done it twice in LA now, but I want to go and do it somewhere where you can actually see all the fish and all that other cool shit.
What's it like being on Awkward.?
It's awesome. I love the offensive humor of it: The writing is great, and the humor is very similar to the way I joke around with my friends. It's a lot fun how we get to improv and do our own thing.
What was the craziest thing you improvised?
When we were filming the graduation scene, I jumped up on stage and grabbed six of the diplomas, then ran off and started to violently hump a bear statue. MTV didn't like that. That had to be cut because we didn't want to offend any bear protection groups. Wow, I'm just giving away the entire season to you. Don't tell anyone.
So that's the one thing that MTV will censor: Bear humping.
Yeah, they let us do a lot of crazy shit, but they really protective over bears.
What's your favorite thing about playing Cole?
His outfits! Like for prom, I got to wear a cheetah print jacket, shorts, and bowtie. It was sick. Then by the end of the episode, I'm dancing shirtless with just the bowtie and shorts on. What I like about Cole is that I don't really have a "serious" storyline on the show and that's totally cool with me. I'm there to make jokes and have fun. It's like I'm playing an exaggerated version of myself.
Evan Crooks (left) and Geer play Theo and Cole on Awkward.
Oh, hot! Now that you've finished filming the last season of the show, did you take anything from the set?
Of course. We were all able to keep our graduation caps, but I really want to go back and take Cole's glasses. We only had one pair, so I had to be super careful when wearing them. Now we wrapped filming, so there's no worry about taking them. I loved being able to wear Cole's glasses because they put me in character. I wasn't Monty anymore, I was Cole.
What did you and the cast do in-between takes?
Get crazy. No, but seriously: We would all just sit around and joke and have fun. Beau [Mirchoff] plays the guitar, so he'd play a lot and we'd all sing and get weird. Beau is insane though. He'd all of a sudden start reading passages from books that you'd read in elementary school. Like he'd start quoting Moby Dick or Pride and Prejudice, and we're just like, "What the fuck, man?" It was always a good time with the cast.
So let's play a quick game of Fuck/Marry/Kill, the MTV Version. Tyler Posey, Beau Mirchoff, and Charlie and Max Carver. Go.
Oh that's hard. Wait, I don't know who Tyler is.
Tyler Posey from Teen Wolf.
Can I Google Image him real quick? Hold on...oh he's hot. I guess I have to start watching more Teen Wolf! OK, lets get back to this. I don't think I would be able to marry the Carver twins. They're crazy, and I feel like they'd team up against me when it came to decisions and shit because they got that twin thing going on. So I guess I'd have to fuck them. I'll marry Beau because he's a great boyfriend to his girlfriend already, so I bet he'd take good care of me. And I'll murder Tyler. Just stab him right in the face. That moneymaker of his.
No mercy! So I must ask then: Are you gay?
Unfortunately, I'm the opposite of gay. I'm straight. I don't judge or put labels on things: If I get drunk and something happens, it happens [laughs].
What's it like playing a gay character?
It's awesome. I mean Cole isn't your stereotypical NBC sitcom kind of gay, ya know? He's not overly flamboyant or anything. He's just a normal guy, that just happens to like guys. I never got uncomfortable with anything I was asked to do. I'm acting. Like this season I had to kiss another guy, but I wasn't weirded out by it. If anything, I was nervous because I wanted to make it look as genuine and real as possible.
The new season of Awkward. airs Monday, Aug. 31 at 9/8c. Watch the trailer below:
