FROM STAR TELEGRAM – Logan Henderson was 16 and living in North Richland Hills when he decided that acting was the life for him. At age 18, with no backup plan in place, he packed his bags and moved to Los Angeles. And now, just barely into his 20s, he’s starring in a popular sitcom for tweens, Nickelodeon’s Big Time Rush, while simultaneously embarking on a pop-music career.
Sounds like a charmed life — and maybe it is — but Henderson’s luck is largely self-made.
“You can wait your whole life for the right moment and it might not ever come,” he says. “So I’m a big believer in making now the right moment.”
It’s fitting that Henderson’s big break has come on Big Time Rush.
The show, in its first season on Nickelodeon, with a second season in the planning stages, is about four hockey friends from Minnesota trying to become the next great boy band. They are discovered and brought to California, four fish out of water being groomed for stardom. Comic high jinks ensue.
“It’s like life imitating art,” Henderson says. “Or is it art imitating life?”
Either way, it’s not uncommon for Henderson and his Big Time Rush buddies — James Maslow, Carlos Pena Jr. and Kendall Schmidt — to experience “ridiculously fake and over-the-top Hollywood moments” and to find themselves saying, “Wow, that was like something that could happen in the show!”
The line between real life and TV fantasy is blurred even more because Big Time Rush really is a band in the making. In the tradition of the Monkees of the late 1960s, these actors were cast not just to star in a cartoonish TV comedy, but also to make real music and to perform in concert.
Big Time Rush is currently recording a debut album, to be released by Columbia/Epic Label Group at the end of summer. When the group released a single in April, the aptly titled Halfway There, it cracked into the Billboard Hot 100. Maybe, given that the show opened last November as Nickelodeon’s highest-rated premiere in three decades, the song should have been titled Already There.
The guys are that big of a hit with the 8-to-16-year-old crowd that also adores Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers and iCarly.
“I never thought of myself as teen celebrity material,” Henderson says. “But it’s been a blessing to be on a show where I can showcase my acting and my singing.”
It has been quite a journey to get this far. Henderson was still a student at Birdville High School in North Richland Hills when he showed up for a cattle call audition in Dallas for Big Time Rush. At the time, he had only one notable TV acting credit on his résumé, an episode of Friday Night Lights, but he already knew “there was nothing else I wanted to be doing for the rest of my life except for this.”
More than 1,500 teens and young adults auditioned, after which perfectionist executive producer Scott Fellows took his sweet time winnowing the candidates down to his final four, meaning that Henderson didn’t hear back about the role right away. Instead of waiting and hoping, however, he took the initiative and moved to L.A. once he turned 18, completing his final semester of high school in California.
“It’s a little scary to make a leap of faith like that,” Henderson says. “But why sell yourself short? I’m all about going big.”
Mind you, back in North Texas, Henderson had been in an acting class with Demi Lovato, who hit it big in Disney Channel’s Sonny With a Chance, and Selena Gomez, the breakout star of Disney’s Wizards of Waverly Place. If they could make it, Henderson reasoned, why couldn’t he?
“I also think it helped that my parents were behind me 100 percent,” he adds.
Although no one in his family has a show-business background (his father is a school therapist and his mom works in the pharmaceutical industry), Henderson notes that many family members, especially his grandparents, love music and are musically gifted. As a result, Henderson’s musical tastes are quite eclectic, including “not just what’s hot now” but also Billie Holiday, B.B. King, Elvis Costello and Prince.
Once Henderson made it to L.A., mind you, he didn’t experience immediate success. One low moment, he recalls, was being fired from a TV commercial before filming began because the director felt he “looked wrong” for the part. “I didn’t even have a chance to be terrible in my first commercial,” he says.
But then the producers from Big Time Rush came calling, and everything fell into place.
“It was a long audition process,” he says. “It took a good two years to find everybody and actually get it set in stone. I’ve never heard of anything like that. Two years? That’s just flat-out ridiculous. But they were very particular about getting the right people. Not just people who could sing and act, but also who brought a certain spark to the roles. And I think they found it. I think they found all the puzzle pieces.”
Henderson’s character is the one most likely to question the wisdom of his buddies’ harebrained schemes. “I’ve gotta get new friends,” the TV version of Logan laments, although he inevitably goes along.
In reality, Henderson says he couldn’t have been teamed with a better group of guys.
“They’re great, genuine people,” he says. “Even all of our families get along really well with one another. We stick to each other pretty tight. Honestly, without even one of us, there wouldn’t be this show. We have our flare-ups every now and then, but when you’re working 16 hours a day with somebody, that’s bound to happen. But we all get over it really quickly, like guys always do. I mean, a second later, we’re like, ‘Let’s go record some music,’ or ‘Let’s go play some football,’ and it will all be better.
“We’re a tight-knit group, and we love what we’re doing.”
FROM STAR TELEGRAM
Sounds like a charmed life — and maybe it is — but Henderson’s luck is largely self-made.
“You can wait your whole life for the right moment and it might not ever come,” he says. “So I’m a big believer in making now the right moment.”
It’s fitting that Henderson’s big break has come on Big Time Rush.
The show, in its first season on Nickelodeon, with a second season in the planning stages, is about four hockey friends from Minnesota trying to become the next great boy band. They are discovered and brought to California, four fish out of water being groomed for stardom. Comic high jinks ensue.
“It’s like life imitating art,” Henderson says. “Or is it art imitating life?”
Either way, it’s not uncommon for Henderson and his Big Time Rush buddies — James Maslow, Carlos Pena Jr. and Kendall Schmidt — to experience “ridiculously fake and over-the-top Hollywood moments” and to find themselves saying, “Wow, that was like something that could happen in the show!”
The line between real life and TV fantasy is blurred even more because Big Time Rush really is a band in the making. In the tradition of the Monkees of the late 1960s, these actors were cast not just to star in a cartoonish TV comedy, but also to make real music and to perform in concert.
Big Time Rush is currently recording a debut album, to be released by Columbia/Epic Label Group at the end of summer. When the group released a single in April, the aptly titled Halfway There, it cracked into the Billboard Hot 100. Maybe, given that the show opened last November as Nickelodeon’s highest-rated premiere in three decades, the song should have been titled Already There.
The guys are that big of a hit with the 8-to-16-year-old crowd that also adores Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers and iCarly.
“I never thought of myself as teen celebrity material,” Henderson says. “But it’s been a blessing to be on a show where I can showcase my acting and my singing.”
It has been quite a journey to get this far. Henderson was still a student at Birdville High School in North Richland Hills when he showed up for a cattle call audition in Dallas for Big Time Rush. At the time, he had only one notable TV acting credit on his résumé, an episode of Friday Night Lights, but he already knew “there was nothing else I wanted to be doing for the rest of my life except for this.”
More than 1,500 teens and young adults auditioned, after which perfectionist executive producer Scott Fellows took his sweet time winnowing the candidates down to his final four, meaning that Henderson didn’t hear back about the role right away. Instead of waiting and hoping, however, he took the initiative and moved to L.A. once he turned 18, completing his final semester of high school in California.
“It’s a little scary to make a leap of faith like that,” Henderson says. “But why sell yourself short? I’m all about going big.”
Mind you, back in North Texas, Henderson had been in an acting class with Demi Lovato, who hit it big in Disney Channel’s Sonny With a Chance, and Selena Gomez, the breakout star of Disney’s Wizards of Waverly Place. If they could make it, Henderson reasoned, why couldn’t he?
“I also think it helped that my parents were behind me 100 percent,” he adds.
Although no one in his family has a show-business background (his father is a school therapist and his mom works in the pharmaceutical industry), Henderson notes that many family members, especially his grandparents, love music and are musically gifted. As a result, Henderson’s musical tastes are quite eclectic, including “not just what’s hot now” but also Billie Holiday, B.B. King, Elvis Costello and Prince.
Once Henderson made it to L.A., mind you, he didn’t experience immediate success. One low moment, he recalls, was being fired from a TV commercial before filming began because the director felt he “looked wrong” for the part. “I didn’t even have a chance to be terrible in my first commercial,” he says.
But then the producers from Big Time Rush came calling, and everything fell into place.
“It was a long audition process,” he says. “It took a good two years to find everybody and actually get it set in stone. I’ve never heard of anything like that. Two years? That’s just flat-out ridiculous. But they were very particular about getting the right people. Not just people who could sing and act, but also who brought a certain spark to the roles. And I think they found it. I think they found all the puzzle pieces.”
Henderson’s character is the one most likely to question the wisdom of his buddies’ harebrained schemes. “I’ve gotta get new friends,” the TV version of Logan laments, although he inevitably goes along.
In reality, Henderson says he couldn’t have been teamed with a better group of guys.
“They’re great, genuine people,” he says. “Even all of our families get along really well with one another. We stick to each other pretty tight. Honestly, without even one of us, there wouldn’t be this show. We have our flare-ups every now and then, but when you’re working 16 hours a day with somebody, that’s bound to happen. But we all get over it really quickly, like guys always do. I mean, a second later, we’re like, ‘Let’s go record some music,’ or ‘Let’s go play some football,’ and it will all be better.
“We’re a tight-knit group, and we love what we’re doing.”
FROM STAR TELEGRAM