10 Facts About Jonny Beauchamp That Will Make You Even More Excited For Katy Keene

Though he was born in the Bronx, Jonny and his first-generation Puerto Rican mother spent 10 years in Rockland County so Jonny could attend a private school before moving back to NYC. Moving around was tough for Jonny, because he was shy as a kid, but eventually, he learned to overcome that shyness. "I was shy, but I never really got far being shy," he explained to Out Magazine in August 2015. "And once I started saying 'f*ck it' and just living my truth and being myself, I found strength in that."

As a teenager, Jonny used to take Greyhound buses from Rockland County to NYC in order to get student tickets to shows and movies, and one of his most eye-opening experiences was seeing Cabaret for the first time. "I had never seen a play like that in my life," he told Interview Magazine back in September 2015. "It was a beautiful hybrid of political mixed messages, holding a mirror to the times, and also amazingly entertaining. It was so gritty and crass and very lascivious. I had only seen Beauty and the Beast and Lion King; that was the first time I saw a musical theater piece that said a little something. It struck me. I saw it twice the closing week."

Once Jonny was living back in NYC and attending the Professional Performing Arts School for his last few years of high school, he was given the opportunity to see more shows and movies, and he was also given the opportunity to express himself in a way he hadn't been able to at his Rockland County private school. "When I was a teenager in New York, I was so into self-expression," he told Vice in November 2015. "I tried on so many different personas and fashions and there was always somewhere to go and be seen; there was inspiration everywhere. So we dressed like lunatics."

After graduating from Marymount Manhattan College, Jonny struggled to land acting roles, and he resolved to wholeheartedly commit himself to pursuing acting for one year. As he explained to Interview Magazine, "I thought, 'Was I really trying as hard as I could? Was I doing everything I could to pursue this?' And I wasn't. I wasn't doing everything I could. So I decided to give myself a year. That meant to me, if you're an artist, you've got to be an artist every day, you can't just be an artist when it's convenient."

When Jonny first read the script for Showtime's Penny Dreadful, he was in the middle of filming Stonewall and wasn't sure he wanted to play another prostitute — until he learned that producer John Logan was attached to the project. He then asked a friend to help him film his audition for Angelique on an iPhone in his dressing room.

"I was like, I will stop at nothing until I get this role," he told TheBacklot in June 2015. "So a friend had come from London to visit the set and I told her. I had about a 15-minute break in between setups. I pulled her into my dressing room. Together we pulled out the fridge and I glued my lines for the scene on the fridge. Then I had her hold my iPhone steady and stuff and I filmed it in 15 minutes in my trailer. It was fantastic."

Playing Penny Dreadful's Angelique, who's a transgender woman, was a learning experience for Jonny, but the role also forced him to face something he'd always avoided as an actor: nude scenes. "I was a bit nervous because I knew this was the first thing people were going to see of me," he told Backstage during a June 2015 interview. "But John Logan said something really helpful: 'It's not you. It is Angelique, it is the character.' It was actually the best thing I ever did because it was my biggest fear. It's a really personal thing."

Playing Penny Dreadful's Angelique was intimidating to Jonny for a number of reasons, but the most daunting thing for him was portraying Angelique in a way that was nuanced and authentic. "For me, the most important thing and what I kept stressing the whole season was I really wanted to honor the transgender community," he explained to TheBacklot, "especially because we were working with a representation of the trans community in a time before transsexualism was even a construct."

Jonny's breakout role gave him the confidence to take on any role afterward, as he'd never imagined stepping so far out of his comfort zone and pulling it off. "Nothing will shake me up after this," he told TV Insider in May 2015. "Now I just feel so free and I will always owe that to Penny Dreadful. It has made me a better actor in so many ways. Hey, I'm a Puerto Rican boy from the Bronx. I never, ever imagined I'd find myself in Victorian England."

After landing his roles in Stonewall and Penny Dreadful, Jonny had to often remind himself that he was deserving of his successes, however unworthy he felt at times. "It's absolutely amazing," he told TheBacklot. "I can't tell you that I don't wake up every day looking in the mirror like why you. Why me? Then I quickly step out of it and I say, of course, this was always the plan. This is what I've been working my whole life for. But then when you get there you're like, 'Oh my god,' when you see the grandeur of what you're working on and creating; it's a gift."

If Jonny has any advice to give his fellow actors, it would be to step out of their comfort zone and play roles that scare them, as he believes those intimidating roles are often the ones that are the most important. "I would tell any [actor] out there working to really consider what they're saying no to and why," he explained to Out Magazine, "and I hope I can inspire people to take on more risky roles. I think we should constantly push our boundaries and bring more visibility to equality. For whatever reason, I have a true connection to these characters, and to me it's not only about their gender or sexual orientations — it's about the stories and the social commentary. Because the truth is, if they weren't homosexual, or transgender, or prostitutes, we might not be having this conversation."