'The Fosters' Season Premiere Postmortem: David Lambert Contemplates Brandon's Future

David Lambert on The Fosters (Photo: Freeform)

Warning: This interview about the season premiere of The Fosters contains spoilers.

If you’ve been watching The Fosters, you know that Monday night’s Season 3B premiere was going to be all about the fall-out of some of the biggest moments of the show to-date: Brandon and Callie’s sexy hook-up, Jesus’s “flunking out” of school, Lena and Stef moving forward after Lena and Monte’s kiss, and the results of Stef’s recent breast exam. And, in true Fosters fashion, the issues weren’t exactly solved so much as complicated further. It’s enough to make any fan’s head spin.

But before you find yourself spinning so far out of control you might do something that lands you a bed at Girls United, take a breath and read on. We managed to get David Lambert on the phone to answer some of our burning questions about Brandon’s future (Juilliard?!) and more.

Right now Juilliard is just in the audition phase, but it looks like Brandon’s already stressing about the tuition money. Should we be reading into that?
Tuition at Juilliard is obviously not cheap, so that’s one of the things he’ll be dealing with. And as Brandon gets older, too, he’s starting to put more adult weights on his shoulders and takes on the obligation of helping with the money situation.

Related: ‘The Fosters’ Renewed for Season 4

Are you at all concerned that Brandon will get into the NYC-based school and then you’ll be off the show?
I don’t think it’ll be that extreme. I will say, Brandon’s pretty stressed out by the whole money thing. I really don’t know what’s going to happen there. This back half, you really just see him struggle financially with it and it causes him to doubt it and doubt himself, and he sort of goes through these internal moments about it all on top of the money issue. He definitely wants to go, but the way things pan out, it just starts looking like it’s less of an option for him. But I don’t think it’s completely off the table. He’s definitely struggling, trying to save up for it.

Is he going to start working at that restaurant at the end of the episode to help?
Yeah, he gets a job at this restaurant-lounge, and possibly meets somebody there. There could be some new characters introduced there for Brandon, and that’s sort of just a side thing that he’s doing for money.

David Lambert and the hot bartender, played by Denyse Tontz. (Photo: Freeform)

Will one of those new characters be a new love interest for Brandon?
Very possibly.

That bartender girl was rather fetching…
Yes! She may or may not be making another appearance. He does end up sort of meeting a girl and that very likely is her. So that’s an interesting relationship and learning more about that character and their relationship will be interesting.

Should we be worried at all about Brandon being around an atmosphere like that — with alcohol — when alcoholism runs in his family?
At this point in his life, Brandon is pretty on top of it, and he stresses himself out with all of his music endeavors that he seems to be taking on. He’s a very unconventional high schooler in that way; he doesn’t really allow himself much of that party time or anything like that. He’s pretty straight edge.

In the final moments of the episode, it looked like someone knows about Brandon and Callie’s big hook-up. Are people going to find out what happened between them?
That seems to be brewing. I actually don’t know how to comment on it because it’s buried and then it’s a reveal. We will be circling back on it, that’s for sure.

Related: ‘The Fosters’ Stars Preview ‘Brallie’s’ Struggle to Move On, New Loves

Other than money issues and romance drama, does Brandon have any other big storylines we should look forward to this season?
We’ve seen Brandon go through multiple phases with his music: He started with classical, and then he went into a band mode and was doing more pop stuff, and the next thing we’re going to seem him take on is a musical. It’s for his senior project at school, and he enlists the help of some of his friends — a lot of them you’re going to recognize, they’re going to be either coming back or a lot of the characters that are on the show currently. He writes this adaptation of Romeo and Juliet and it’s this musical and he’s all excited about it.

Speaking of path changes and people leaving the show, what did you think when you first heard Jake T. Austin was leaving the show? (Note: Austin left in March 2015 and, while no official reason has been given, he faced a few brushes with the law since the show’s 2013 premiere while some reports claim he no longer wanted to do a show where he played a teen.)
As an actor, there’s a few ways you can approach things like that. You can either choose to stay very involved and get the updates and stuff, and I was someone who just chose not to and let it be handled by whoever needs to handle that — the producers and the network and whatever — and sort of just do my job. Jake was great and he obviously started this with us and so there is that, but I think it ultimately just became sort of a difference in sort of interest and ultimately, you know, things didn’t work out there.

David Lambert with Noah Centineo, the new Jesus. (Photo: Freeform)

His character, Jesus, has since been recast. How has that change been?
Having to deal with a recast was at first a little jarring. But, with that said, and every chance I get, I do want to say this because I see things all the time on social media, comments about Noah [Centineo], who’s now playing Jesus: He’s been fantastic and it’s actually been really fun to see what he does with the role. He’s not changing the character at all, which I think is the biggest fear, that it won’t feel like Jesus anymore. It really does feel like the character with an added take, with Noah’s own spin on it. I think he’s going to do really well and I think everyone’s going to like him. Now — we just wrapped about a week ago — he feels right at home and he totally fit in with everyone and he’s enthusiastic to be there. Everything feels pretty good on set.

Brandon had a great line about Jesus and all his ex-girlfriends in this episode. Is there one of those ladies you think he should wind up with?
I want to see him with Emma, because I think she’s the most grounded. But, I think Jesus and Lexi always had a thing, so that might end up happening again. Maybe that fits him better.

The Fosters airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on Freeform.