Wilson Bethel Previews "Wacky World" of Stupid Hype
Matt Richenthal
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Wilson Bethel will soon be trading in his wife beater for a pair of parachute pants.
The lovable Hart of Dixie actor won't just star in Season 2 of that CW drama this fall, but will also anchor Stupid Hype, a Web series that will debut on CWD, the network's upcoming digital platform that will be part of CWTV.com.
In it, the man behind Wade Kinella will portray... well, Hype a hot shot break dancer whose career comes to a halt for reasons we'll discover on the opening episode. Why Hype? Why not Stupid Hype as the title suggests?
"By the end of the series, God Willing, he will be Stupid Hype," Bethel told me over the phone. "It's like earning his Jedi stripes."
The series is set in an "unidentified urban place in 1990," Bethel previewed, adding that it will take Hype through the "wacky world" of "underground freestyle rap and poetry slam battles."
So, based on the premise and the character, it's safe to assume Bethel was a fan of Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer, right?
"I can't imagine anyone roughly my age [28] who didn't have one of their cassettes," he said. "I was definitely a fan, but [Stupid Hype] is more about a general love of hip hop and music in general."
Each episode will be five or six minutes in length and the idea, Bethel says, was to create a "mini movie" divided into shorter installments.
And where did this idea come from? The actor says The CW was "thrilled" by his rap collaboration with Rachel Bilson, an idea he pitched to the network without even running by his co-star first. ("Rachel really brought her A game for that," Wilson says in an understatement.)
President Mark Pedowitz trusted Bethel enough to not even demand any oversight over the online project.
"He just let me run with it, which was a huge vote of confidence."
So Bethel can rap, he can dance. Viewers will be seeing some of those skills incorporated into Wade this fall on Hart of Dixie, right? Bethel laughed: "There's not too much cross-pollination there. I think the worlds are too divergent for that."
Does he have any intel on the show's second season, though? Along the lines of a certain love triangle? Would he want to see Wade end up with Zoe? Or is the chase half the run?
"My sense is the chase is far from over," he said.
Hart of Dixie returns on October 2, while no premiere date has been set yet for Stupid Hype.
Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.
