Keegan Allen (Photo courtesy Southern Women's Show)
The summer finale of the hit Freeform series “Pretty Little Liars” left fans on the edge of their seats as they wondered what would happen to their favorite characters. This includes Toby Cavanaugh (played by Keegan Allen), who experienced a serious car accident. Fans will have to wait until the series returns for its final 10 episodes, beginning April 18, to have all of their burning questions answered. While that chapter may be coming to a close for Cavanaugh (maybe sooner than we might think), Allen has a host of projects on tap, from his first book, “Life.Love.Beauty,” to a debut album, as well as some upcoming acting roles. Allen will make an appearance in Richmond to discuss the show and sign autographs of his photography book during The Southern Women’s Show on March 18. We caught up with Allen in advance of his visit to ask about the final episodes of the show, now in its seventh season, and what’s next post-“Pretty Little Liars.”
Richmond magazine: Your book, “Life.Love.Beauty,” is a photo journal of your life thus far. Will you be discussing this project and others during The Southern Women’s Show?
Keegan Allen: Yeah, the [paperback version of the] book will be hopefully available for people to purchase,” and I’m working on a series of other projects as well. I’m working on my music as of right now and Its been a project I’ve been tinkering and toying with over a decade.
RM: What sort of music are you working on? Can we expect a single or an album?
Allen: We’ve been working on an album right now, but I am releasing a single first [titled “Million Miles Away”]. I play the guitar, I play the piano and I do sing on it. They’re just little silly love songs that I really like and I’ve been playing for years. I was recently at Troian [Bellisario’s] wedding, my co-star, and it was really wonderful and beautiful and I played that song at [her] wedding. It’s a song about being in love with someone [while] in a long distance relationship and I felt like it was really appropriate because Patrick [Adams (a Canadian actor)] and Troian have this beautiful relationship, but then Patrick shoots really far away and Troian, when she was shooting “Pretty Little Liars,” she was very far away from him, but they were able to keep this really beautiful relationship for so long and then eventually got married. I felt it very appropriate to play the song there and I hope that whoever hears it feels something from it and that it does some sort of a job for someone somewhere and it gives them hope.
RM: When did you publish “Life.Love.Beauty.” and why did you decide now was a good time to release a photo journal of your life?
Allen: It was published in the beginning of 2015 and I finished the book in 2014. I originally started shooting and taking photographs ... really around the age of 9 years old. My dad gave me this really beautiful film camera and kind of employed me with it to capture moments that I wanted to keep and enjoy forever. I was under this impression that all of my photographs at the time when I was very young would just stay in this little book and, in sort of a very archaic version of social media, I would bring the photo book with me everywhere and show people my photos. ... I felt like I liked that idea of having something to hold in your hand rather than making a blog or sending off photos for social media, which I still do, but I wanted something to sort of feel a little more personal and also to inspire people. The more that I felt like I would share the photography with people, the more they would themselves go out there ... like ‘Oh, I want to try that myself,’ so that would always bring me a lot of joy. That was kind of the premise ... I wanted people to know that they can bring a camera with them everywhere. There is no better time than the present to get involved with photography and it’s had so much of an impact on my life and others.
RM: The book is very personal and shows more about your own life. Do you think fans who only know you for the show will be able to see beyond “Pretty Little Liars” and learn more about you?
Allen: The show has been an amazing opportunity for me to reach more fans and more people, but I look at it as an environment that I [could] create within. ... I did a play in New York and so many people showed up and they were just vividly interested in the subject matter, the book itself, the idea of music, other projects I’m working on, like [my] role on “Major Crimes” [the TNT spin-off series of “The Closer”]. It’s really amazing how “Pretty Little Liars” has been such a solid platform ... I mean, my co-star Ian Harding is doing his book and it’s really amazing; I read it and he is just so talented. And Shay [Mitchell] with her book and Lucy [Hale] with her music, Ashley [Benson] with her films; everyone has kind of been able to use “Pretty Little Liars” as a really unique platform to get their art and their visions out there and inspire people and also gain inspiration from others, too.
RM: Do you think you will release another book in the future?
Allen: Yes, I’m working on one right now, I’m working on my second book. The subject matter is different, but it’s still personal to me and it still will resonate, I believe, with a lot of people. I almost approached it from a photojournalist point of view so I’m interested to see how people will respond to it; it will be out probably around next year. I’ve been working on it for the past three and a half years.
RM: It sounds like you have many creative things happening right now in your life, so when it comes to “Pretty Little Liars,” do you feel it’s your breakout role?
Allen: Yeah, I mean, Marlene King [the creator of "Pretty Little Liars"], I always refer to her as the mother of my career. She really did believe in me and kept me on this show for so long and allowed me to play this character out and fans really supported this character as well. Every time I meet fans on the street or out or at any of these events especially [i.e. The Southern Women’s Show], it’s always my opportunity to thank people for believing in the character and allowing me to have that avenue to continue to create art around me, because I think without “Pretty Little Liars” it would have been a little bit of a different path to create, but its been really, really wonderful and incredible and I would definitely categorize it as a breakout role.
RM: How much can you tell us about the fate of Toby?
Allen: I like to troll the internet and I like to mess around with people and I went into the last press junket in kind of a funny way where I was just kind of like, “He’s dead, He died,” [laughs] but I think it’s safe to say if the character died, I would have been chilling for the last two weeks. It’s safe to say when [the show] comes back, there’s a lot of drama that happens and we’ll find out what happens, but it’s a really great last 10 episodes. ... I think it’s the best 10 episodes the show’s ever done, it’s really, really jarring and intense and creative and it adds a whole new layer to the show from start to finish. It also brings a slight peak of interest towards re-watching the show from the beginning to see where you could have found clues to solving all of this very early on.
RM: Toby’s allegiance has been somewhat murky at times during the shifting and twisting plot. It’s been hard to tell sometimes if he was the hero or the villain. How has it been for you portraying that type of personality?
Allen: It’s been good. I emulated a lot of different people I knew throughout my life that were — funny enough — introverts but had a very interesting take on their public life. And so I tried to emulate that ... a lot of my friends are like that. It was really fun to play that character because it is really a [180] of who I am, but at the same time I learned a lot in my own personal life of how to be a better boyfriend, how to be a better man, how to be a more romantic man, which is very difficult unless you have those guidelines of the writing of Marlene King. She’s a very romantic writer and her romanticism is so fun to emulate.
RM: Filming is now wrapped, correct?
Allen: We’re done shooting forever now. We wrapped the show in November for good.
RM: How do you feel now that the series is over?
Allen: We ended on a very high note. Everybody is very, very grateful and happy to have been a part of the show. We’re all into doing different things and we’ve grown a lot since the beginning, I mean we were only children when we started. Its just been an incredible ride and we love each other and it’s just like a big family and hopefully throughout the years we’ll all remain close and look back fondly on our chapter of our life that was “Pretty Little Liars.”
RM: What should people expect from the end of the series?
Allen: A lot of the answers to what they wanted to know from the entire beginning of the series. It’s a season of homecomings [and] characters revisiting, and a lot of answers.
The 26th annual Southern Women’s Show will be held March 17-19 at the Richmond Raceway Complex, 600 E. Laburnum Ave. Tickets cost $12 for adults and $6 ages 6-12 (discount tickets are available in advance at Walgreens). 800-849-0248 or southernshows.com/wri.
