Trevor Larcom Talks 'Fresh Off the Boat,' Teaching Colin Farrell and Listening to Lil Uzi Vert

We talked to Trent from 'Fresh Off the Boat' aka Chad Velcoro.

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Complex Original

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Fresh Off the Boat might lead the pack in casting the funniest working kids in television. From young Eddie (Hudson Yang) to his precocious younger brothers Emery and Evan (Forrest Wheeler; Ian Chen), you'd be hard-pressed to keep a straight face during any given episode. But the comedic acting chops extend past the main cast of Eddie (Hudson Yang) and his brothers—even Eddie's recurring schoolmates are hilarious, especially Trent, portrayed by one Trevor Larcom. You probably remember him as the kid who hilariously burned his Cleveland Browns jacket when he found out the team was leaving in the season 2 finale. You may also remember Trevor for inspiring the rare moments of pure entertainment from the otherwise joyless True Detective season two as Chad, Ray Velcoro's son. With Fresh Off the Boat season 3 premiering tonight, we hopped on the phone with Trevor to talk about being a part of some of the most buzzworthy dramas and sitcoms out, burning that jacket on set, and if he ever responds to emails as Chad Velcoro.

How did you get into acting?
Well, my mom, she had a friend that was acting, and her friend had a manager that liked her friend. At first [my mom] didn’t want to do it, but then [her friend] convinced her to let me try it. We just started auditioning, and then I got a job once, and it was pretty cool. Then I just started getting more jobs. 

Have you been enjoying it so far?
Yeah! It’s fun. I like all the different sets and all the kids I get to meet.

What’s your favorite thing you've done on Fresh off the Boat so far? Personally, my favorite was when you burned your jacket.
Burning the jacket was pretty fun because I had to work on some pretty hot days, and that jacket was quite hot.

What can you tell me about the new season?
Emery [Forrest Wheeler] goes off the grid, so he is in our school now and that will be pretty fun. I should be on the second episode this season. You know how last year there was some fantasy scenes where we kind of dipped off and go into a fantasy? There are going to be more of those this year. 

One of the big things about Fresh off the Boat is Eddie’s love of rap music. Do you listen to rap?
I do a little.

Who do you listen to?
Drake, Lil Uzi Vert and some Future too.

What’s your favorite song right now?
Probably "Seven Million" by Lil Uzi Vert.

Who is your favorite actor or someone you look up to?
Colin Farrell, who I worked with on True Detective.

What was it like working with him? Did you learn anything from him?
He was really professional, but he was really nice at the same time. There were some pretty rough scenes, and every time, he would say sorry to me after.

Did you teach him anything?
He said I was a really great actor so, I mean, maybe. I’m not sure.

It must have been pretty wild being on a show like True Detective at such an early age.
It was pretty fun. There was some pretty weird scenes for me because I'm a kid, but the show was really cool to work on. And it was fun working at all the different houses and different locations.

Did your mom ever let you watch any of the episodes?
Yeah, I watched the whole season I was on. I would just watch my parts in the episode because there were some pretty weird things... I don’t know, that’s just not my thing.​

Yeah, it got pretty heavy. One of the main things people talk about from your scenes on that show was, your character Chad wanting to watch Friends. Have you ever actually seen Friends in real life?
I think I’ve seen it once when I was in the hotel—we were shooting that scene the next day, and [my mom] told me to watch the show, so I did. Then I fell asleep.

Did you like what you saw of it?
It was pretty cool. And our Fresh off the Boat dressing rooms are actually the old dressing rooms for Friends.

Do you ever get emails from people who watched True Detective? I don’t know if you know, but there is this thing where Colin was trying to email Chad, and the email never went through.
I saw that. I don’t know, I guess somebody did set up an email account, right? Someone made a Facebook fan page for Chad Velcoro. It’s pretty funny. They put me in the show on a bunch of different pictures. One of them, I’m like on the moon; I’m with the Friends cast in that picture where they are drinking sundaes. People talk about it a lot on my Twitter.​

What else do you have going on this year besides Fresh off the Boat?
Teachers—it’s on TV Land. I’ve been working on that. And I'm going for a couple of auditions this week.

If you had to choose a TV show that is one right now that you would want to be on, which is it?
I don’t know because I have Fresh off the Boat for comedy. I like doing drama a lot, actually. Maybe like one of those crime shows like Criminal Minds. That would be pretty cool.

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