Pop-Culturalist.com

Reed Horstmann is an emerging storyteller who is captivating audiences with the nuanced and layered characters he’s brought to life in projects including The Expanding Universe of Ashley Garcia and Cattle Call.

This year, he’s reprising his role as Jake/Chaos in The Villains of Valley View. The action-comedy follows a family of raucous supervillains who recently ran afoul of the League of Villains, so now they must somehow beat a path to normalcy in a small Texas town.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with Reed about the new season of The Villains of Valley View, how the series tells a familiar story from a new perspective, his collaboration with the writers’ room, and more.

Please Note: This interview was filmed prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike. We stand in solidarity with SAG-AFTRA and the WGA, and will not be conducting further interviews until a fair deal is reached.

PC: How did you discover your passion for acting and storytelling?
Reed: My passion for acting, storytelling, or even performing in general came from my parents and the art they exposed me to at a very young age. I come from a pretty creative family for the most part, and I can’t think of a time when I wasn’t surrounded by great movies and television. I think that early exposure really cemented my interest in discovering new characters and stories to act out in front of my family and larger audiences. From there, my love for it has only gotten bigger.

PC: Who or what has had the biggest influence on your career?
Reed: It’s hard to say. I’ve been lucky enough to have many mentors as my career has grown. At this point, one of my biggest mentors has become the very first director I ever worked with, Mrs. Jody Margolin Hahn. She has honestly become like a second mom to me since I started living in LA. She’s been a voice of constant guidance and encouragement in all factors of my life and is always pushing to get the best performance from me.

PC: The Villains of Valley View has been incredibly well received. What do you think is resonating most with audiences?
Reed: To me, the resonance comes from the fact that we’re telling a story from a perspective not much explored in Hollywood. The idea of fleshing out a villain’s perspective beyond the usual “take over the world” mentality is completely new territory and was a blast for us to discover. From the start, these are very complicated characters, each with their own unique quirks that make them accessible for really anyone to relate to. At the end of the day, these characters may be villains, but they are also just people trying to figure things out like the rest of us.

PC: One of the benefits of television as a medium is the opportunity to grow with a character over an extended period of time. As you’ve headed into Season 2, how has the trust that you’ve built with the writers allowed you to take agency over your character and infuse more elements of yourself into him?
Reed: I think one of the biggest things—and this is a testament to our writers—is that they’ve taken notice of my natural humor and cadence when it comes to jokes. They’ve started to write to accommodate this to make scenes even funnier. There were a few points where they were interested to hear my thoughts on the character and what I liked about where he was at now, as well as where I hope to see him grow in the future. That kind of collaboration is special in this business, and I really do appreciate them for trusting me in that way.

PC: So much of Jake’s journey throughout the two seasons has been creating his own path outside of his family’s expectations, which you brought so much nuance to. As an actor, how did you create the space for yourself to dive into that journey?
Reed: The biggest thing was to really follow the road map of the backstory that our showrunners had written for the character, which gave me a trajectory for the rest of the season. Finding the core of Jake and his motivations really was what made such a complicated character so much easier to navigate. After many meetings and discussions together, we found that as the story progresses Jake does what he does out of love. Yes, he may make decisions that cause him to be judged by his family, but he’ll always defend them the moment trouble comes. On top of that, he always makes an effort to teach his family compassion and to go against the villain’s grain; even if it doesn’t work, he’ll always continue to encourage them.

PC: This is the longest that you’ve lived with a character. Has anything surprised you about the experience? What’s been the biggest takeaway thus far?
Reed: I’m not sure if anything has surprised me per se. If anything, it was an ongoing process of growing more comfortable, confident, and autonomous as I did more episodes. The weekly process of seeing every rewrite of every episode just goes to show that the writers are on that journey with us. We grow in our relationship together through this vessel of the character, and every new situation the character is put in serves as new tests to see how he will react or change as a result.

PC: You’re such a dynamic young talent. As you look ahead, is there a dream role that you’d love to bring to life on the screen?
Reed: This is always a hard question to think about because as an actor you never know what script is going to make its way to your desk. There’s always the possibility of falling in love with a role that you didn’t even know existed until it meets you. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword where we never know what’s coming. I will say though, I have always wanted to do Star Wars; that would be pretty freakin’ awesome.

To keep up with Reed, follow him on Instagram. Watch The Villains of Valley View on Disney Now today.

Photo Credit: Rowan Daly // Grooming: Kimberly Bragalone // Styling: Ben Holtrop