On Episode 11 of The CW series Legacies, entitled “We’re Gonna Need a Spotlight,” the Salvatore School’s annual talent show turns into something straight out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers when a creature shows up that lowers everyone’s inhibitions. And while Alaric Saltzman (Matthew Davis), headmaster of the school for the young and supernaturally gifted, decides to play hooky, Lizzie (Jenny Boyd) is determined to make sure the show will go on, as her twin Josie (Kaylee Bryant) decides that she’s more than ready to step into the spotlight.
During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, actress Kaylee Bryant talked about how she ended up singing on the show, working on the song with a vocal coach, the most fun and most challenges aspects of the episode, the Saltzman twins 2.0, Josie’s journey to find her own voice and stand up for herself more, the Josie-Penelope (Lulu Antariksa) dynamic, forming her own sister bond with co-star Jenny Boyd, her favorite monster so far, why she journals for her character, what it means to be a Gemini twin, and what she’d like to see in Season 2, which has already been picked up by the network.
Collider: I very much enjoyed this episode. It’s so much fun!
KAYLEE BRYANT: Thank you!
I’m definitely a sucker for talent shows, and I’m also a big Invasion of the Body Snatchers fan, and it’s a combination of those two amazing things.
BRYANT: Wow, so this is the perfect episode for you.
When you first got and read “We’re Gonna Need a Spotlight,” what was your reaction to the episode?
BRYANT: It’s funny, they walked around the set a couple weeks before we had gotten the script for this episode and said, “If we had a talent show, what would your talent be?” And me, as Kaylee, said, “Ooh, I’d sing!” And then, I looked at them and went, “Wait, are you talking about Josie or Kaylee?,” and they refused to say. So, when I got the script, I got so nervous ‘cause I haven’t really trained vocally, professionally, in years. I got a little bit scared, if we’re being honest.
What was it like to do that whole scene, where Josie gets her big moment, especially knowing that people have been rooting for her to step into the spotlight for a long time?
BRYANT: Yeah, it was really interesting. It was a long process. I got the song a couple of weeks before we started working on the episode, so I started working with a vocal coach. And then, after that, I ended up going through dance rehearsals with the other dancers. And then, we ended up getting to the final day of actually filming. It was a long process. By the time we were actually there, filming it felt like second nature. It was very easy.
When you do an episode that has a unicorn and mind-controlling parasites, there’s kissing, and there’s singing and dancing, what was the most fun day on set, and what was the most challenging day on set?
BRYANT: I have to say that the most fun was the day that we shot on the stage, just ‘cause it made me feel like I was back in my musical theater days. It felt very second nature. And I think the most difficult day was when we were doing all of the things in the mill, ‘cause when the weather starts to change, it actually gets quite cold, and if you’ve seen Josie’s outfits, she never really wears too much. So, I was freezing my butt off while trying to have these intimate moments. That was difficult, but I feel like it turned out well, so I’m pretty proud of it
In this episode, Josie and Lizzie talk about being the Saltzman twins 2.0. What does that mean for them and everybody else around them?
BRYANT: For Lizzie, I think it means trying her best to not be as mean and as open about her opinions on things. And for Josie, it means trying to be more open about her own opinions, in her own way. She clearly has just as much difficulty as Lizzie does.
It seems like there’s an equal balance where, as hard as it is for Lizzie to try to be nice, it’s equally as hard for Josie to be a bitch. Was it fun to have a little bit of that role reversal this time, and to have Josie stand up to Lizzie a little bit?
BRYANT: I thought that was so much fun. Anytime that I get to have those moments with Jenny [Boyd] are so much fun to me. Especially with this specific episode, it almost felt like I was playing more myself than anything ‘cause I feel similar to Josie, except that I’m maybe a little bit more light-hearted and have a little bit of an easier time voicing my opinion. So, the scene where Josie is walking around the stage, talking to Lizzie and all the dancers, was so much fun to shoot ‘cause this is what’s actually going on in Josie’s head, when she’s not worrying about something.
Do you hope that now that she’s found her voice a little bit that it will stick with her for a little while? What you like to see her stand up for herself more?
BRYANT: It’s a long journey for Josie. This episode happened ‘cause of the slugs. Plus, she has a conversation with her dad, at the end of the episode, where she basically decides that she likes not saying things ‘cause it creates less conflict. She’s okay with herself. But the reality is that there’s so much that she doesn’t say that she’s gonna have to burst, at some point. So, it’s still a journey. It’s not an easy thing for her to say, “Oh, I said my sister was terrible, so I’m just gonna say some stuff and walk away.” It’s something that she’s trying to figure out a good balance for.
We’ve seen enough of an evolution in the relationship between Josie and Penelope (Lulu Antariksa) that we’re actually starting to maybe not hate Penelope so much. What have you enjoyed about exploring that relationship?
BRYANT: It’s a really interesting dynamic ‘cause Penelope and Josie both want the same thing for Josie. Josie would like to be able to voice her opinions and would like to be her own person, outside of her sister, but she’ doesn’t quite know how to do that. That’s what Penelope wants, too, but Penelope is going about it in a way that Josie just doesn’t like, so it creates a huge conflict between them. It’s interesting to watch it unfold ‘cause you clearly can tell that they both want the same thing, but they’re just so incompatible in their thought process that it creates mass chaos between the two.
What can you say to tease what’s to come for them, beyond this episode?
BRYANT: I think that Penelope and Josie are just trying to figure out a level of communication between the two of them. Penelope is so set in who she wants Josie to be, and Josie is so set in who she wants to be. Penelope is constantly manipulating the people that Josie loves to create this person, and Josie just doesn’t feel ready to be that person yet. So, it’s gonna be a journey of them really being able to discuss things together ‘cause they’re just not having very honest discussions with each other.
Josie is a twin, which means that sister bond is crucial to their relationship. What was it like the first time that you and Jenny Boyd met, and how has your own relationship grown, throughout the season?
BRYANT: It’s so funny, Jenny and I met at the final callback for the show, and we were both reading for both Josie and Lizzie. We didn’t know who was gonna play who. And then, we both got our roles, but they didn’t tell us who was playing who, so we ended up actually meeting for coffee, a couple times, when we were both still in Los Angeles, and we both joked around about who would be who, and who would have to go blonde, and it morphed into this really great thing. We didn’t read any scenes together, during the audition process, so the first time we ever acted together was on set, in our bedroom. It’s been really, really great. I love her so much, as a friend and basically a sister, at this point. Because we have so many scenes together, it’s really, really easy to jump into that dialogue with her.
There’s so much that’s really cool about this show, with the different fun monsters, every week, and the family and relationship drama. When you originally auditioned for this series, what was it that drew you to the show?
BRYANT: When I got the audition, I was a fan of The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, so I had this very specific imagery in my head of how the show would look and the style of acting that it would be. But if you watch the show, it’s so different, so it was definitely a learning curve, figuring out the more light-hearted dialogue between the characters. It was very interesting to make a different show. That was really exciting to me.
With the different monsters of the week, have you had a personal favorite monster, and are there any fun ones coming up?
BRYANT: Definitely, the unicorn is my favorite, easily. I have a lot of affection for unicorns. There is a unicorn hat that I’m constantly wearing, and people give me unicorn pens, as gifts. So, I was very excited when the unicorn came up. And there are a lot of really exciting monsters, coming up. I don’t know what I can say about which ones, so I’m just gonna say that there’s a lot to look out for.
You’ve previously talked about how you do journal entries for your character, and that you even do that on set. Is that something that you still do, and is that something you think you’ll do, throughout the run of the series?
BRYANT: Oh, yeah, absolutely! It’s something that I’ve been thinking about, now that I’m on hiatus, as far as whether or not I’m gonna continue in the same journal, or start a completely new one. It’s really, really integral to how I go about Josie. Because she doesn’t say so much, a lot of it does needs to be written down, for her to really process anything. So, I still have my journal and I’m just trying to decide, if I want to start a completely new one. I don’t wanna waste paper.
We know that Josie and Lizzie have a few years before they have to deal with the merge that comes with being Gemini twins, but that’s still a really horrible ticking clock over their heads. Have you thought about or had any conversations about that, and how that might eventually play out?
BRYANT: Jenny and I are constantly joking about it. Depending on whether we’re having a really good day or really bad day, it’ll be like, “You’ll win the merge,” or “You’re gonna have to kill me ‘cause I’m tired.” It’s an ongoing joke on set, as far as who’s gonna die, just based off of who’s the most tired. Nobody has told me anything specific about the merge ‘cause it is so far out, but it’s definitely something that we’re all constantly discussing, more as a joke than anything. I’m sure it eventually won’t be a joke, but until then, it is.
As someone who was a fan of The Vampire Diaries, what’s it been like to have some of those cast members make guest appearances on the show, or direct episodes of the show?
BRYANT: It’s been really, really interesting. We had Paul Wesley on our set, directing an episode, and I was like, “That’s Stefan, not Paul.” It was definitely interesting, getting past that. Everybody that was on that show is so talented. To actually see their talent at work, especially in different lights, like seeing Paul as a director instead of an actor, it was interesting to see him work.
What has being a part of this show and getting to work with this cast taught you about acting and about yourself, as an actor?
BRYANT: I feel like I’ve learned a lot, in the past seven months, just ‘cause I’ve never had the opportunity to play one character for this long. You have to learn how to pace yourself. The hours that we work are very long, and it’s constantly a highly emotional show. You can’t kill yourself over something in one episode ‘cause you’re gonna have to do something really crazy in the next episode. It was about learning to pace yourself, as a human being, and as Kaylee and Josie, if that makes any sense.
Congratulations on the Season 2 pick-up! Have you had any conversations yet about where things will go next, especially now that it’s official?
BRYANT: Yeah, (executive producer) Brett Matthews and (showrunner) Julie Plec actually sat down with every single one of us cast members, at the end of the season, to talk with us and discuss what we wanted for our characters. They asked me what I wanted for Josie, and I just looked at them like, “What?! That’s not my job!” But a big part of what I did discuss with them was just that I really loved seeing Josie’s growth, and I’d love to see that continue.
Legacies airs on Thursday nights on The CW.