"The Fosters" Cast on What Defines a Family

Hey guys, Audrey Cleo here headed upstairs to the TV bedrooms with the stars of The Fosters and getting the scoop on what it's like to have JLo as your boss.

Hanging out on the set with Jake T. Austin. How are you doing?

How are you? Welcome to my bedroom.

Yeah, is this my real life bedroom?

Okay, is your real life bedroom cleaner or messier than you're sitting?

Oh, I would hope my yeah, I would hope my my personal bedroom is cleaner than this, but it suits the character.

Well, you play Jesus.

Yes. I play Jesus Foster. Jesus is a brother to Mariana and they are a set of twins who've been estranged from their biological mother and they're living under a new roof with a new family, going through new um experiences and the show picks up um in San Diego.

This is Mariana's room.

Yes. I wanted it to be mine, but it's Mariana's.

it's so you're saying this room is cooler.

Yes.

Tell me a little bit about Mariana. She's a complicated girl.

She is a very complicated girl. She's 15 years old and she's very optimistic. coming from a fostering background. She's very interested in finding out about her biological mother and who she is and she's a teenager and she kind of gets into some trouble trying to reach her parent her her biological mother behind her parents' back. So, that definitely comes into play with her storyline.

David Lambert who plays Brandon on the show. Brandon is a pretty special character.

Yeah, yeah, he's he's a pretty fun one. He's the oldest in the Fosters house. He's the biological son of Steff, one of the mothers. He plays piano. He's a really gifted musician. Um which keeps me on my toes 'cause I actually play piano in my real life. But I would say he's wow.

Cool. So, that's you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, for a lot of it it is, but you know, some of the more classical pieces like Rachmaninoff and all these amazing pieces that Brandon plays are a little out of my uh my league, but uh I do try to play as live as much as possible.

I'm hanging out with one of the newer additions to the Foster family. Uh Maya Mitchell who plays Cali.

Hi.

The accent threw me off. I'm not gonna lie.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

Great. I love it. I'm so glad. Feel free to get super super Aussie.

All right. And then so you yeah, there we go. For sure. Cali kind of she's kind of a troubled young lady.

Yes. To say the least. Yes. When you see Cali in the pilot, when we meet her she's in the thick of um, you know, dealing with a really intense situation and, you know, she's just been released from Juvi. She's grown up in the system, but really, you know, where Lena and Steff, the Foster family, is a really good situation where they've got loving parents. Cali's kind of grown up with the opposite of that. Um yeah, she's kind of harsh and kind of comes across quite um kind of intense and and short, but um, but she kind of she warms to the family and she definitely you see her kind of open up more and become more comfortable throughout the show.

It's a very unique family. You've got two moms in the family.

You have a mom and a mom.

Same sex couple.

Same sex couple.

A lot going on.

Yeah.

A lot.

Multi-racial.

I mean, and one of the themes of the show is how do you define family? So, how do you define family?

I don't think family can be defined by necessarily who's in your blood, but by who you feel an attraction to or love to.

Mmm.

You know, who you care about. It just has to deal with love and accepting one another despite what you're going through, always being there, having each other's backs and always being there for a shoulder to cry on or someone to lean on. You know, it doesn't even necessarily need to be blood. You know, it could be it could be really really close friends to you. It could be I mean, it could really be anyone.

There's a give and take and there's an equal amount of it and that you're giving as much as you're taking from that other person. I think is what really family is all about.

I don't think there is a definition of family anymore and I think that's what the show kind of represents is that a family you know, can be made up of um, you know, any any kind of dynamic. So, I think that's really really common now to have two moms or two dads raising a family or, you know, to have foster kids there's 400,000 foster kids in America alone. So, that's actually a really really common situation and often they are, you know, different ethnicities because America's such a multicultural place. And so, um I think that what's cool about the show is that it's not preaching that, it's just giving you a look into their lives.

Now, one of the women responsible for bringing this show to life is none other than someone named Jennifer Lopez.

Yeah, yeah, I've heard of her before.

You may have heard of her. She's kind of your boss more or less, right?

It's it's so weird to say that. It's a weird thing to say. Those words like JLo is my boss is kind of it's very surreal for me. She's definitely my boss.

Okay.

Yeah. She's my boss. She's a boss lady. Um, yeah, which is awesome. She's got so much experience. She's great. She's really honestly a very down to earth woman and she comes she comes around as much as she can and um she definitely has checked in on us and

Is that intimidating when she's gonna be on the set, when you know she's gonna be on the set?

Um, well, I mean the thing is sometimes I don't know when she's gonna be on set. So sometimes it's like it's one of those things where it's like, oh okay, she's here today. All right. She comes to visit a lot. And the first time she came to visit, I was like in mid-burrito. I was eating I was eating I was in mid-bite. I was like, nearly dropped it. I was like, Hold on. Is that JLo? Is that JLo?

Wait, let's reenact this a little bit. So. Here we go.

Is that JLo? I was like, hold up. Oh my god.

Yeah. The first day I met her I was like making a coffee and she kind of came up behind me and like I turned around and it's just Jennifer Lopez. And uh that was like the day I met her. But no she's really.

Sarah was eating a burrito. That's what she told me.

Yeah. Yeah. No. It seems like she's caught us in all these really just gold moments, just really comedic.

With our mouths are in stable.

Exactly. Exactly. She's she's incorporated her own, you know, fashion and and a lot of um implementations that she's put into the show and and really added her own flare. So, everything you see is is a reflection on her.

A lot of JLo flare then.

A lot of JLo.

Does that mean we'll be seeing some like glitter uh in your wardrobe maybe?

I don't know about any glitters. I don't know about any choreography.

Okay. But we're not ruling it out. You're not saying no. You're not saying that's not gonna happen. Right. Okay. Got it. All right. Young Hollywood exclusive. Right. Right here.

What was what was your reaction when you first met her?

Um, I think I was just, you know, you build it up so much and like we'd all been pulled from set, like take this picture with her. And it's like kind of like this big deal and then we met her and it was like, oh, yeah, she's just like Jennifer. Just a lady called Jennifer. Just Jenny from the Block. She's

Yeah. Don't be fooled by the rocks that she's got. No. She's just Jenny from the Block.

Someone's a fan.