GALO: Moving away from otherworldly elements, this show finds a formative foundation in being a Romeo and Juliet like love story. Of course, the main characters of Emery and Roman will inevitably fall for each other, but it looks like Lukas is gravitating toward and might be developing amorous feelings for Sophia. How do you think Lukas will be if he falls in love — saccharine or will he look at romance in a more idyllic way?

TM: If Lukas fell in love, he would definitely be the head-over-heels guy; [he would be] the guy that is planning everything and really trying to be the best boyfriend possible. He’s just trying to find the right girl to give everything to. He definitely would really be supportive and there for her, and really creative. He’s pretty smart, so I’m pretty sure she would have some creative dates going on.

GALO: And how do you think Emery and Roman can overcome the outside challenges that hinder them?

TM: I think it is one of those situations where only time can let things settle in. The more that people see the Atrians aren’t out to hurt them, the more accepting they will be with them. I would assume — I have no idea where it’s going — it would take at least a couple of years, maybe about two years for things to settle in a bit more, before people really start accepting cross-race relationships.

GALO: Star-Crossed may be taking a more circuitous route to getting Emery and Roman together, but is already directly tackling the tension between the humans and aliens head-on in the first seven episodes. Have you found any of the plot twists and turns really enthralling, and if so, which ones and why?

TM: Yes, absolutely. A lot of things that have happened with Sophia, with the humans trying to hurt her, [were surprising.] And just with Victoria Platt’s character, Gloria, and her being tied to Roman’s character the way she is. It definitely proved that some twists are extremely story-driven and really help to propel the story forward, and that is cool.

GALO: Backpedaling for a minute, your last role as David from 2010-12 on FOX’s hit show Glee involved a lot of musical elements. Playing on Glee must have been a sublime experience given your singing and dancing background. What were some of the most pivotal changes and nuances between your character on that show and the dreamy Star-Crossed?

TM: Playing on Glee was amazing, amazing, amazing; the cast and crew were amazing. There’s just a different scene, because with Glee we had a lot of rehearsals with music and dancing and a lot more focus with the musical connection with the audience. And on the Star-Crossed side, it’s just pure scenes. It’s really just [a process]: (a) here’s the dialogue and (b) connect with the dialogue. You literally just go off of the words as opposed to always having the awesome chance to just talk and connect with the story. But playing them both is extremely fun and I wouldn’t trade either of them. They [the roles] are just different in the musical theater sense to the pure theatrical sense.

GALO: Moving away from acting, many fans might be surprised to discover that you were a gymnast for eight years and began training in Germany. What attracted you to that sport and did it inspire you to move into acting? Any plans to resume that activity?

TM: A long time ago, I actually had watched it [gymnastics] on TV when we used to live in Germany. I was watching the Olympics one year while I was in elementary school. I tried to do flips and taught myself how to do a backflip, which was bad. I would play in the street and try to do cartwheels in the street. There was a gymnastics coach who lived across the street from us in Germany. He came outside and tried talking to me the best he could in broken English; he also went and talked to my parents. And I ended up taking gymnastics classes in Germany, and it kept furthering in the years following that. And to this day, I don’t still train in it. But I do keep up my tumbling skills for the sake of pure enjoyment and TV reasons, because there are a lot of times I may need to tumble or do a backflip in a scene or something just to add pizzazz.

GALO: And if you could dream up the perfect role using your gymnastics talents, what would it be?

TM: I would definitely dream up some action role where I’m like crime-fighting: some daredevil guy that’s like flipping from rooftop to rooftop, running around town like all tough and stuff and doing some cool backflips… I would say like I Robot with flips.

GALO: Are you envisaging about any other specific plans or goals, whether career or otherwise, right now?

TM: Yes! During this down time between seasons of Star-Crossed, I have gotten back into music. I originally started doing music before acting picked up. I love them both equally, so I’ve been able to start doing music again and working on my EP, which hopefully will be coming out before the end of the year. This is pretty much the other side: there’s a lot of music and a lot of shows. And I’m really just trying to get that out there as an artist.

GALO: Do you write your own songs?

TM: Yes, I have a great team that I work with. We sit down and have awesome writing sessions, and come up with new music. And it’s very rooted to who I want to be as an artist. It’s not a lot of studio fluffy sound; it’s very acoustic. There’s a lot of piano, a lot of guitar, a lot of strings, violins and stuff. It’s really raw, awesome music.

GALO: You must live for the stage and love performing a lot then?

TM: I do. It’s really fun. I like to think of other things I would like to do, but I can’t really come up with anything.

You can catch Titus Makin Jr. on the CW’s “Star-Crossed” on Mondays at 8.7c. Full episodes of the show are also available online on www.cwtv.com. Check out the trailer for the upcoming episode below!


Video Courtesy of the CW.

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Featured image: Titus Makin Jr. stars as Lukas in the CW’s sci-fi drama “Star-Crossed.” Photo Credit: Russell Baer.