Being 13 is tough.

You know who got me through it though? Judy Blume.

I'm being totally serious though. Judy Blume and her books. I'm being totally serious though. Judy Blume and her books. Hangin' out on the couch with me, the very handsome, very charming Julian Morris. Hello. Thanks for droppin' by. Your new show, Hand of God.

Yeah.

Dark stuff.

It is dark.

You play a reverend.

I play a reverend, yeah. A dark reverend.

Tell me, tell me a little bit about Reverend Paul.

He's he's fantastic. I mean for me it was a character I've been looking to play for for years. He is this actor turned conman turned preacher.

It's very meta.

It is very meta. Yeah, yeah, totally. But yes, he has this very dark past and then he comes into the scene, this new town, and meets this very very powerful judge, played by Ron Perlman. And that sort of leads him down the the rabbit hole in this quite twisted journey. But for me it was like the most fun I've had on on set and and with a character in in years.

Really? For such a dark show, it was actually a pretty fun set.

Oh, yeah, big time. It was a fantastic set. I mean I think that goes to and an assessment to sort of Ron. Ron Perlman, number one, of course she just started setting that tone. But yeah, we had fun. I mean the the stories were dark, but we had a great time together.

Cool. And you mentioned Ron who is just a phenomenal actor, one of my favorites, and then also Dana Delany, who you get to work with.

Yeah.

What kinds of stuff did you get to learn from them?

Okay, so Ron, I had a big episode, episode five. And um we were thinking about the script. In my first rehearsal with Marc Forster and Ben Watkins, Marc the director, they asked me what I feared most. And the answer to that was episode five. So it comes along. And I'm like two pages in and I'm like, okay, this is this is my answer. And I asked Ron, how would you approach this material? And he said to me, in terms of acting, make every word count. Which is simple advice, but you know you're thinking about the the sort of the melody of of of the line and and just every word having a meaning behind it. And then of course you get onto set, you're in your scene, and then you forget about it and just just have fun.

Well, a lot of your fans know you from from some of the other stuff you've done. I mean, obviously, Pretty Little Liars. Could we see more of Wren in the future?

Yeah, I think definitely. I mean, so I had the time of my life. No, I think I would I would love to go back. I would love to see Wren's storyline resolved before the show finishes. And then there's talk of a of a PLL movie, so which, you know, I don't know if I'd be a part of but but Marlene has hinted at. But in terms of why I left Pretty Little Liars, I wanted to challenge myself with characters and storylines that I hadn't really touched on before. And so like I'd started Pretty Little Liars, you know, when when I was fairly young. And I think a lot of the fans began watching when they were fairly young. We've sort of grown up together on it. And so I hope that some of them come with me to to Hand of God, as I have, and I think they'll really really really enjoy it.

And and on the Pretty Little Liars tip, I mean, you have a a pretty raging bromance with with Ian Harding.

He's he's one of my best friends. I saw him just two nights ago. He's wicked.

Were you guys on like your man date?

We're on a man date, I guess we were. Yeah, yeah, we were. He's the most fantastic guy. He's one of my best friends. He's he's warm, he's funny. He was the first person I met of the PLL sort of universe. We were as it turns out on the same flight going up to Vancouver where we shot the pilot.

Oh, fun.

And then I got off the flight and then we met at the the baggage carousel. And and like, hey, you doin' this this thing, Pretty Little Liars? It's the pilot. And then like, who are you playing? Oh, okay, cool, man.

I I was reading your story about how you actually 'cause you live in LA now, right? And um how you kind of took a risk to get into acting, really. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, so acting was was something that I I always loved doing. It was a hobby that I did after school. I was lucky to to play all the young roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company in my teens. The first play I did, I was 13. And the director, Elijah Moshinsky, amazing theater director, he wanted me to to stand up on this chair with my arms outstretched, give this like mini little, you know, speech. Which for me, at 13, was like a big big deal. You know, huge audience out there uh when we did it. Just being 13 is kind of tough. I mean,

Being 13 is tough. Yeah. You know who got me through it though? Judy Blume.

I'm being totally serious though. Judy Blume and her books.

Are you a Tiger Eyes fan?

Yeah. And I I mean I kinda dated You know it's mostly like teenage girls.

Oh, I know. Trust me. But it was amazing. So

Were you really a teenage girl? I was a teenage girl, yeah.

So so Judy Blume was your your saving grace during the awkward teen years.

One of and yeah. Super Fudge when I was when I was younger.

I love Judy Blume. She's amazing.

There you go. There you go. Yeah, so so Shakespeare and Judy Blume. Um, and then acting, you know, I was very shy as a kid. And um drama class sort of helped me get out of that and have fun. I wanted to be really good at soccer, football. I wasn't.

I want to know exactly how American are you or rather how British are you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So so I came up with a game. It's actually called How British Are You? Um, and I have a couple of questions with a couple of options. And I actually have have the the most British answer.

Who who who like said what the British answer is?

I did. And the internet.

Yeah.

Oh, you did? Yeah. Okay, cool. Yes. I have family over there. So, so. In London. Okay, cool. In Shepherd's Bush. Okay, very cool. So your first question is, pants are A, something you wear over your underwear,

Yeah, yeah.

or B, actually your underwear?

Underwear. Underwear.

Okay, okay, so so you are British still so far. Okay, good. Okay, number two, the last time you had tea was I love tea last night.

Last night.

Oh, that's not even an option. It was last month, last hour, or last year. So,

Oh, I had tea last night. And I was gonna have tea before coming here 'cause tea's great. It gives you a bit of pep but it also like calms you. Okay. So I was gonna have it prior to coming into this show.

What's your favorite tea? Do you have a do you have a preference?

Oh, God, now we're getting into it. Yeah. Okay, Darjeeling, any time of day. But it's also but the thing with tea is how you make it. So you the the very British way of making tea is you warm the pot. Okay. And you warm your cup. Mhm. And of course you're using china, good china. Okay. So you keep it warm so it doesn't get cold. And then how long you steep it for. And then one essential piece of advice when making tea is you never ever squeeze a teabag. Sometimes you see people squeeze a teabag. You know this, right? 'Cause that releases all the

You know in America they actually just leave it in there.

No, you should. But you just leave it. You just let the tea be.

Let the tea be.

Exactly. For like good three, four minutes. Just read the label.

Okay. Okay, um, number three. When Prince William married the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, you A, said, who? B, cried with tears of joy, or C, wondered why Americans cared so much?

That one. You know what? I gotta tell you something. Okay, so I am in the minority in in Britain and I'm actually a British republican. So I don't think that we should have a royal family. Now, props to the royal family. I think they're all lovely, wonderful people.

But who would we look to for all of our fashion and get excited by when they have babies?

Hopefully not them. Hopefully not them.

You're not thinking about the Americans here.

No, I mean, listen, we and I don't know. We still look to them as people, like admire them as as people. But in terms of like a political system, you know, I think we shouldn't have a head of state that is also the head of a religion. Um, I think that we shouldn't devolve power to a bloodline. I think a royal family doesn't befit like a modern democracy.

Well, I hope you

They're as people, wonderful. But yeah.

Okay, your last How British Are You? question. Which of the following is a member of the band One Direction? Is it A, Robbie Williams? Not Robbie Williams. B, Louis Tomlinson, or C, Cristiano Ronaldo?

Cristiano Ronaldo. B, B.

Yes, Louis Tomlinson is your fellow countryman and he is a member of One Direction. Um, Julian, it was so much fun. Congratulations, you're still British. So, so I don't know what do I do? I have to like curtsy or something or can I just like high-five?

You can high-five me.

Oh, that's very American. Yes, it is. We're very weird with that. Is that what we do?

And you can see I'm British by not doing that very, very well.