Benjamin Norris Peels Back Trent’s Onion Layers In Never Have I Ever Season 3, Plus Reveals His Dream Celebrity Narrator
What do Trent Harrison and Shrek have in common? Like the onion, you gotta peel back the layers.
Trent has always been my favorite character of Never Have I Ever, but the show’s third season shines a spotlight on him as he experiences the ups and downs of love and graduation. I spoke with Benjamin Norris for Pop Culture Planet about his character’s journey.
Norris opened up about Trent and Eleanor’s budding romance. “This season, Trent has found love! He had love before with Paxton, but this is a new kind of love. Trent and Eleanor just make so much sense. I’m so excited to see what kind of shenanigans these two are up to because you just never know what you’re going to get with this couple,” he shared with me. “As actors, Ramona [Young] and I are on very much the same page when we’re performing. She’s a dream to work with. She’s incredibly prepared as an actor. She takes her work very seriously but also has so much fun on set. I feel like I’m very similar to that. On top of that, it really helps that we both really love our own characters. We just have fun being them and so we always kept things light, things were always a good time, and we were always there for each other.”
While it’s hard to choose sides in the Devi-Paxton-Ben love triangle (“I can’t really choose sides there because I have a very strong backup to my day one homie Paxton”), he teases Fabiola’s exciting love life. “I really love Fabiola's love life in this season,” he shared about Lee Rodriguez’s character arc. “It's really cool because I think that character realizes that she doesn't have to be boxed in in any certain type of way. She can just like wherever her heart takes her [and] she's going to follow. I love that for her.”
Aside from literal and figurative sparks flying when Treleanor are together, Trent also struggles with the big changes that come with graduating high school. “I was very much so like Trent in high school. I enjoyed my high school experience. I know not everyone did and, of course, there were parts of it that were rough,” said Norris. “I loved my friends and I love my hometown. The idea of change and the idea of people who I love leaving to go to different places, that was really difficult on me. I brought some of that into my performance because Trent loves to love. He loves those around him. He especially loves Paxton and it’s really difficult for Trent to understand a world where he’s not with those people everyday, just like a lot of high schoolers out there.”
Through these difficult changes, Trent experiences a lot of growth. “One great thing about Trent is that he's shown so much growth throughout the seasons, which I don't know if a lot of people saw that coming. I don't know if I saw that coming, to be honest with you,” admitted Norris. “But he's so three-dimensional now. He's an onion. You peel back the layers and, by the end of it, it was really cool to see him accept the changes and accept the future.”
Norris opened up about what he hopes for Trent in the future. “Things do change and people change. Whatever he decides to do in life, even if the first thing doesn’t work out or the next thing doesn’t work out, he’ll find his path. Whether it’s with someone or on his own. It’s so funny, I’m talking to him like he’s a little brother to me,” he laughed. “But I really want Trent to understand that even though he might not be the best in school or he might not have the skillset that those around him have, that’s okay. He is who he is. You should be proud of that. He’ll be just fine because people like Trent. That’s important. He has a big heart.”
Never Have I Ever boasts some big names who hop in to narrate the experiences of Devi, Paxton, and Ben like John McEnroe, Gigi Hadid, and Andy Samberg. Who would narrate the inner workings of Trent’s mind? “I always say Seth Rogen for very obvious reasons, but faitly recently I saw someone online —I’ll give a shout out — who suggested Keanu Reeves and I was like, ‘Wow, that’s actually not bad.’ Look at the development of that actor. He started out as the surfer stoner guy and then turned into Neo. You never know where this guy is going to go. Then you watch interviews with him and he’s actually really deep and sincere and genuine. I think that’s what Trent is. I don’t know if Trent is Neo, I don’t think he’s the one, but I do think he’s this guy that people like to laugh at and people saw as a joke and then he opens his mouth and sometimes things come out that you weren’t expecting.”
All three seasons of Never Have I Ever are streaming on Netflix. See more from when Norris stopped by the Pop Culture Planet podcast, below:
