Brennan Clost: An Actor and Dancer Challenging the Stigma Surrounding Male Ballet Dancers

Brennan Clost combines his love of dancing with his passion for acting in his new role as Shane in Netflix’s Tiny Pretty Things. The series follows the lives of students in an elite private ballet school in Chicago, who are dealing with the aftermath of the tragic fall of their school’s star dancer. In conversation with his co-star Casimere Jollette, who shines as Bette on the show, Brennan shares his experience filming the show, what he hopes viewers take away from his character, and advice he has for aspiring dancers and actors.

Casimere Jollette: Hey, Brennan!

Brennan Clost: Thanks for jumping into this interview. I'm excited. I'm glad we get to chat with each other rather than like a formal interview.

CJ: Yeah, I wish we were doing it in person.

BC: I know. It's been how long since we were together? It's been like eight months. That's wild. I'm so glad we squeezed in that trip though.

CJ: Right before the pandemic. Yeah, it was great to be able to see each other last time.

BC: Yeah. Well now we get to do a bunch of press for the show, Tiny Pretty Things.

CJ: Yes! Let's go into what the show is about.

 BC: So elevator pitch, Tiny Pretty Things is a drama adapted from a series of books that follows the lives of these students—elite dancers at the Archer School of Ballet in Chicago—following a fateful incident with their star student. It sort of follows this mystery through who did it—investigating the fall—that’s sort of our catalyst moment at the beginning of the series.

I play Shane McRae who's described as a hot headed scrapper and his family's greatest hope. He sort of comes to the Archer School of Ballet years before we pick up in the series. This is his dream and his passion and sort of his escape from his close-minded small town that he grew up in. And tell us about Bette, your character.

CJ: Bette’s a really perfect and confident, what they call a music box, ballerina. I come from a very well-off family, and I have a lot going on underneath the surface. Like I've always played second fiddle to my sister, who's like the principal dancer at City Works Ballet.

BC: I don't know if we can tease too much here, but our characters have a really fun tension between them.

CJ: They don't like each other.

BC: Yeah, no, not at all, but then are partnered together. And so they need each other in ways, but also hate each other. 

CJ: I know. Like we have to be there for each other and fully trust each other, even though we don't like each other. We're dancing together the whole season.

So should we get into the questions? Let's see. Can you tell me a bit about your life growing up and how you got into dance? I mean, I know this already.

BC: We could literally answer for each other! I started dancing when I was seven, and we both actually grew up, or kind of started dancing, in the competitive dance world, which is very different from the world of Tiny Pretty Things. I continued dancing competitively until the end of high school. Then through competitive dance, I got scouted by a talent agent, and that's sort of how I got into film and TV. So then when I pursued dance at Juilliard for university, I was also every single summer filming a TV show. So it was getting kind of like a stark contrast between acting on this show and more sort of like classical dance training at Juilliard. Then now, Tiny Pretty Things is the perfect amalgamation of both. What about you? When did you, and how old were you when you started dancing?

CJ: I was two! My mom threw me in baby ballet to see if I'd like it. I learned and never really stopped and then did competitive dancing from when I was five years old until when I was 14, when I started doing just ballet.

So tell me about your character, Shane, in Tiny Pretty Things. What immediately drew you to him, if anything? Were you immediately drawn to him? 

BC: Yeah, I was. I got the self-tape for Oren first, but I read the whole breakdown and I was like, Oren's amazing, but I want to read for Shane. I don't know what it was about it. I think on the character breakdown it said "tormented for his love of dance growing up, moved away from home and is his family's greatest hope.” That hit me because I grew up getting bullied really badly for being a male dancer and for not fitting the mold. I feel like Shane and my stories are similar in that he grew up in sort of a smaller, more close-minded town, bullied for being different. Then when we moved away to a school where we were surrounded by like-minded individuals, that's when we really flourished. So I remember reading that just in the breakdown, and I was like, I want to read for him. I luckily got to, and everything worked out the way it was supposed to. But what about with Bette?

CJ: Initially, just the whole story because I'm from Chicago, and Tiny Pretty Thing is about an elite ballet academy based in Chicago, Illinois. I'm like, that was me my whole life. I was at a ballet academy in Chicago, like I studied here. So the similarities drawn between my life and being a dancer seeing a project like this, you're instantly connected. But more so like her character, she is a perfectionist, which all of us in ballet can, you know, refer to and understand and the fact that she's like so perfect. She hides all of this, and she dances through her pain despite being injured. I could literally connect to that so well. Coming into the show, I had a back injury, I just got like 6% joint injections in my spine, and then I had to go dance, like I could barely dance at that stage.

BC: I remember we had the two weeks of rehearsal before going to camera on the show, and because you and I were partnered up before we really knew each other. I remember being in an Uber and you, you and I were kind of like leaning on each other in the back. It was just the two of us. You were like, “Yeah, so my back is really injured. Like I just got six cortisone shots in my spine.”

CJ: Nobody knew at this point because I went into the show thinking like, oh my God, this is my dream role. Like, this is amazing. But after two weeks of being there, they're going to recast me because I'm injured. Like I thought they were going to throw me off the show.

So yeah, I can relate to her on that. Literally while filming, I get injured. I tear my psoas as I’m dancing—

BC: Which if anyone doesn't know, your psoas is your biggest hip flexor that connects your femur, your thigh bone, to your spine. It's like the deepest hip flexor muscle, so you cannot move your legs at all.

CJ: No, my, my left leg was just a noodle, and I danced on it for nine days. We were in rehearsals. They're just like keep pushing, Casimere, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah because that's me. I'm like, I don't want to stop dancing and not be able to dance and do these scenes and perform on the show. I just kept pushing through it because I'm like, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. I feel like Bette is very similar in that way, and you'll see and understand. Almost everybody on the show was like, “Oh, are you method acting?” And like, “No, I'm not method acting,” but it did help me really understand her more and dive into her character.

BC: Yeah, like the stakes at play because the stakes for you in real life were I'm the lead on this Netflix show, I can't let anyone down, I can't let myself down, this is my dream role. Even though I'm injured, I'm going to fight through it. Then for Bette, it's that she's at this prestigious school, she has to prove herself. She needs to secure a lead role to be seen as valuable by her mother to not get lost in her sister's shadow to feel like she's worth it at all. This poor girl, she has no self confidence, even though she, I feel like fakes it so much through the show. Well, and then with your psoas, like you would've just kept going. Barton and I came into your trailer, and you could barely stand up.

CJ: That's when we had to film the scene with the Tiler Peck. So I was like, oh my God this is my dream. I've known her forever. To be able to dance with her and for her, I was like, I can't let her down. I can't let any of these people down.

BC: Bart and I came into your trailer. We were like, “You are too injured to dance. If you keep dancing on this, you could wreck it for good, sit down, lay down, get the medic in here. Like, you're not dancing, and we will go and tell the producers for you.” You've been holding together so much, and the minute the two of us came in, we were like you cannot, and you just melted and cried into our arms. At that point we were like, if she keeps dancing, she's gonna wreck herself.

CJ: I know, and I would've kept going. Okay so, what do you hope people take away from Shane?

BC: I really love in episode 10, there's a scene where Ramon tells Shane that he dances like a sissy and he doesn't dance like a man. Or he doesn't dance manly enough. That idea of not being enough of however you identify—like Shane is a man and identifies as a man—and to be told that you're not manly enough, just because of a certain quality that you carry or the way that he chooses to dance... like movement doesn't have a gender. That was something that myself and I'm sure a lot of boys who dance probably will resonate with: being told that they're not manly enough or not dancing like a man. I would have teachers in my competitive dance studios come up and be like, “Don't do it that way. Dance like how a man would dance.” I'm like, but I am a man and I'm dancing. It's such a dichotomy of it being coined as a female art form, and so then a man in there has to like assert himself with certain qualities. It's what Shane struggles with the whole season. Between him and Oren, Oren is the prince and the ideal male dancer, like the epitome of masculinity, and Shane doesn't feel like he's enough of that. So I hope people take away that Shane's a beautiful dancer and has equal talent and merit to Oren or people that are seen as like the epitome of a prince, you know? Yeah. What about with Bette? What's one thing that you hope people take away from her?

CJ: Firstly, I think people are going to judge her very quickly. One thing I want people to take away from is don't judge a book by its cover. As cheesy as that is, don't because you really don't know what someone's going through in their home life and their love life or anything. She kind of puts up this front to hide that from people and acts as if she's a certain way to hide things about herself that she doesn't want the world to know that she is really struggling under the surface. There's a lot going on under there that you wouldn't expect looking at her. You're like, oh, she's this perfect girl, and she's really malicious. But she is a good person. She has a hard shell, but underneath there, like she's just overall a good person. You shouldn't be so quick to assume things about people and maybe learn more about them.

BC: I think Bette is a character that we realized deserves a second chance. Everyone at the school judges her and kind of writes her off as this like bitch cold-hearted ice queen.

CJ: Yeah, Shane does that. They absolutely hate each other.

Last question: what advice do you have for young dancers and actors?

 BC: If you love it, never give up. Follow what makes you happy. No matter what anyone else says, like if other people don't understand it or bully you or tease you or put down your ideas or your dreams, if it makes you happy, never give it up. What about you? What's your advice?

CJ: Literally that. Once you find the job that you love, it'll never seem like work. If you're happy and you found that, then that's where you gotta be, and just keep doing it.

PHOTOS JUSTIN WU