Barons makes its United States broadcast debut on The CW tonight (May 29) at 9PM ET/PT and KSiteTV was able to speak with actor Sean Keenan who plays one of the lead characters, Bill “Trotter” Dwyer, who navigates his love of surfing with the formation of a new business, possibly damaging relationships on the way up. The characters in Barons are both loosely based on a mixture of real-life people who started the “board short revolution” in Australia back in the 1970s, where real life business rivals built some of the biggest surf brands. Sean Keenan has his own real-life experience with surfing, which of course lends authenticity to his role. The show itself takes place in that 1970s time period, and for those who haven’t seen the show yet, Keenan gave us the run-down.
“It’s set in fictional coastal town in Australia, and we kind of arrive with these two best mates, Trotter and Snapper, who are working to make local wetsuits for their surfing community,” he explained. “Trotter has been working for a few years for Snapper and has been kind of kept under his thumb. He’s a hard worker and he feels like he deserves to put that work to use, but when he decides to start out and make his own surfing brand to make more money, he will, in a way, destroy that friendship.”
“You have Snapper whose eternal hippie belief is that you only work hard when the surf’s not good,” Keenan continued. “Trotter is different. He sees the potential of where these brands could go. He knows how addictive it is; that feeling of surfing, and I think because he’s a newcomer and it’s so fresh in his mind, he goes ‘this is a goldmine! We could make money off this sport!’ They both have conflicting ideologies.”
Knowing how things went for some of the pioneers in the industry in real life, might we ever see what becomes of these characters?
“I know that if they do another season, they have plans for where the show will go, and where things will end up,” Sean said. One can look on Wikipedia to see what happened with the major surf brands and what happened when they brought them to the American market, but as for Trotter?
“Going into the 1980s, it was a pretty exciting time to surfing. It was a massive, massive industry. Guys started making massive amounts of money, and these these companies went public on the stock market. So a lot of excitement, but also there’s a lot more, a lot more conflict, when money gets that big. I can’t promise you that he’d be happy, but I think he’d be rich in the future,” Sean speculated.
And how does it feel for the American audience to get to see this show on The CW? “I grew up watching shows on The CW,” Keenan said. “It’s great for such a massive audience to see something that we worked so hard on and put so much love. I love making the show, and I am friends with all the cast, and I think that really translates to the scenes. Also, surfing such a universal thing, and so much of America has such a massive surfing community and culture, and I think they’ll love it.”
“I think there’s so much to love about the show,” Keenan continued. “I’m excited for an American audience to see it.”
Barons premieres Monday, May 29 on The CW.
