As they began to map out the fourth season, the writers-who have become famous for balancing the absurd (think leprechauns, banshees, killer clowns ) with classic adolescent angst-found an opening to flesh out Jed’s backstory.
In addition to discussing the romantic potential of Josie and Finch (Courtney Bandeko), Bryant informed Peterson that Ben Levin, who plays Jed Tien, had expressed his willingness to play a queer character in an homage to several members of his family who are part of the LGBTQ+ community. In the show’s third season, Price Peterson-a former recapper of The Vampire Diaries and current television writer who had recently joined Legacies -was helping to oversee the production of his first episode when he struck up a conversation with Kaylee Bryant, who played Josie Saltzman (and who left the series last December ). But instead of simply checking another box for network television, they wanted to wait for the right story to present itself. When executive producers Julie Plec and Brett Matthews set out to expand the Vampire Diaries universe with Legacies, the second spinoff of the long-running CW supernatural drama, they knew they wanted to depict a same-sex romance between two male characters at the Salvatore Boarding School for the Young & Gifted. Zane Phillips as Ben (l) and Ben Levin as Jed
