Vaughan's Luke Bilyk sets sights on Raising Expectations

Former Degrassi star’s new show debuts Sunday

Thestar.com
May 6, 2016
By Tim Kelly

You may well know Vaughan’s Luke Bilyk as Drew Torres from Degrassi: The Next Generation where he starred for five years, but now the 21-year-old is hitting the small screen in a brand new show.

Debuting Sunday at 7:30 p.m. on Family Channel, Raising Expectations tells the story of a pair of “multi-exceptional parents” raising four “multi-exceptional children” and one not-so-exceptional child. Laughs and some life lessons ensue.

The series stars Canadian veteran actor Jason Priestley of Beverly Hills 90210 and Call Me Fitz fame as well as Molly Ringwald (Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club) who play the parents.

Bilyk is the oldest child in the family, Adam Wayney.

“I play the star protege child, a biology major, who my father almost wants to be in a sense, who almost lives vicariously through me,” said Bilyk during a recent phone interview.

“It’s great because you get to see a family working together through all of the different problems that we have through each and every episode,” he said.

Bilyk who was born and raised in Vaughan and lived in the same house for 21 years, just moved to Los Angeles recently to pursue his film career. He has two movies in post-production – one called F*&% the Prom or Text Me When it’s Over “about a group of misfits who have a horrible time in high school and who get back at the popular kids at prom,” the other called Kiss and Cry, “a true story about a girl named Carly Allison, diagnosed with cancer at age 19 who passed away a year later. It stars Sarah Fisher who was in Degrassi with me and is a story about living life to the fullest, not letting any moment slip through your fingers.”

The young actor said it was great to work with veterans like Priestley and Ringwald especially since they also began working in television as very young actors.

“I’ve looked up to Jason Priestley as a mentor and I learned so much from the both of them; how they handle social media, talking about their experiences, especially since I starting growing up at 14 years old on such a giant show (Degrassi). There were a lot of things to relate about.”

Bilyk takes as his motto a quote he attributes to his biggest inspiration, Academy Award-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio: “I want to be remembered for the roles that I’ve done and the people that I’ve touched through my roles.”

He said, “If I could steal that quote, I would do it right now.”