Jon Beavers is a recurring character on Hulu's drama Paradise, and fans are clamoring to learn more about the actor.
Sterling K. Brown stars in Paradise as Xavier Collins, a secret service agent who finds the United States President he was assigned to protect shot dead in his bedroom. But the identity of the killer isn't Paradise's only mystery. The end of the premiere episode reveals a massive, shocking plot twist.
Jon Beavers plays Billy Page, a fellow agent to Brown's Xavier.
5 Fun Facts About Paradise's Jon Beavers
Jon Beavers Grew up in Hawaii
40-year-old Jon Beavers (born May 21, 1984) may have been born in Iowa City, but he spent his formative years on the sunny island of Maui in Hawaii.
According to his bio on Uproar Theatrics, however, Beavers has since left the Aloha State and moved on to live in Los Angeles, California, likely to advance his acting career.
Jon Got His Start as Twist in The Fresh Beat Band
Beavers' first major role was as Twist, one of the four main musician characters in Nickelodeon's The Fresh Beat Band. The show ran from 2009 to 2013.
The program was developed with young kids in mind, and each episode followed the same format. Twist manned the turntables and often beatboxed.
In a 2009 interview with StuffWeLike, it was revealed that Jon Beavers performed an original song that he wrote himself during his audition for The Fresh Beat Band. He was impressed by how much his contributions to the show and his character were listened to and incorporated into each episode:
"What's been cool about the show from the auditions up until now is what we've brought to the table, whether we knew were bringing it or now, has largely influenced the shape of the show."
He also expressed his fondness for the importance that Fresh Beat Band placed on the art of making music:
"The show's not about being rock stars. It's not about being famous musicians. It's about everyone playing music, or can and should be able to. Music can be a part of your life and should be a part of your life."
Jon Co-Created a Musical
In 2013, alongside Casey Hurt, Ian Merrigan, and Ramiz Monsef, Jon Beavers co-created a one-act musical entitled The Unfortunates.
The play centers on tough guy Big Joe McKinney, a man slated for execution who just happens to have comically oversized hands.
Ramiz Monsef spoke to Inside A.C.T. about the protagonist's enlarged appendages, noting that inspiration was drawn from Dark Horse Comics mainstays Hellboy and The Goon:
"Yeah. Hellboy and the Goon, absolutely. I've always found hands really fascinating. I also like [early-twentieth century Austrian painter] Egon Schiele, whose figures all have these crazy fingers. We drew inspiration from everywhere."
Beavers added that action flicks and the artwork of the legendary Jack Kirby also influenced The Unfortunates:
"We also drew from action movies. And we were really interested in propaganda posters from the two world wars. In World War II, the artwork was heavily influenced by [comic book artist] Jack Kirby, graphic novels, and cartoons from the New Yorker. The styles of those artists were used for war propaganda, and we were borrowing from all of that."
Jon Is Married to Hannah Louise Beavers
Jon Beavers tied the knot with his wife, Hannah Louise, in 2012. In an Instagram post he made in 2021, Beavers commemorated his anniversary by sharing a couple's photo along with a thoughtful caption:
"Nine years this lady's let me call her my wife. I am the the luckiest of all the ducks"
Before Paradise, Jon Starred in The Long Road Home & Horizon
Before landing the part of Billy Page in producer Dan Fogelman's latest and enigmatically-plotted series Paradise, Jon Beavers earned credits in several popular television and film projects.
Recently, he portrayed Junior in both parts of the Kevin Costner passion project Horizon: An American Saga. Additionally, Beavers acted in 2021's indie favorite from Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza.
Notably, Beavers also stepped into the boots of real-world soldier Sergeant Eric Bourquin in The Long Road Home, a much-lauded 2017 miniseries about the Iraq War that aired on National Geographic.
On playing Bourquin, Beavers was, at first, "extremely intimidated" by the prospect:
"You come in extremely intimidated to play an actual war hero who is not only still very much alive and kicking but is going to stand 8 to 10 feet from you while you pretend to do what he actually did — and then you meet the guy and it's tough to feel uncomfortable around Eric. Right from the beginning, I worked on a kids' show before this for Nickelodeon and Eric's kids used to watch it. So he was like, ‘How do you feel, man? Is this weird for you?' And I was like, ‘I'm glad you asked that, because it's really weird for me. And it must be weird for you.' And he's like, ‘Hey, I'm talking to Twist from the ‘Fresh Beat Band' right now!' Eric is a shepherd and he has the warmest heart."
How To Follow Jon Beavers Online
Jon Beavers can be found on Instagram.
Paradise is streaming on Hulu.
