Joshua Hoffman doesn’t have to think too hard when asked to describe himself as a child. “I just did a project for my dad where I took all of the old camcorder footage that he had and digitized it,” the B&B newcomer begins. “So I got to see what I was actually like as a kid. I was very inquisitive; I was very interested in a lot of things. I liked to ask questions and I was always looking at things and studying them. I would either be very loud or very quiet. So I was a very, very dynamic kid. That’s how I describe myself.”
Performing, however, was not his first love — that was baseball — but it was through the sport that he wound up pursuing the arts as a career. “I’ve been playing baseball my whole life and my dad expected me to make it to the major leagues and my family believed that that was what I was going to do,” he says. “So I would play baseball for hours every single day and then every weekend, we would drive to a travel baseball team that I would play for and it was very intense. I was getting burned out by it and my mom noticed that and she was like, ‘Hey, you should go and act in a play,’ which couldn’t be farther than being on a baseball team in a 12-year-old’s mind. And I was like, ‘Uh, sure, that sounds interesting.’ ”
His first play was Oliver Twist, and Hoffman was instantly hooked. “I played the Artful Dodger and I was doing the accent every single day,” he relays. “I absolutely loved it. An agent came and saw it while she was on vacation and was like, ‘You should do acting.’ So that’s how I got started in acting.”
It wasn’t an unusual pivot — Hoffman had already been exposed to the entertainment business through his father. “My father’s a writer; he writes screenplays and such. We have, I think, a couple thousand VHS tapes of some of the greatest films in history laying around my house. And I think I probably watched a classic film almost every single day of my childhood. I would sneak films into my room that I definitely shouldn’t have been seeing, but they had such an effect on me. I definitely was interested in, and enticed by, acting.”
So Hoffman began pursuing his new passion in earnest. “I got an agent and they’re like, ‘You’re gonna start auditioning.’ I kid you not, this was my day: We drove to L.A., which is a two-and-a-half hour drive. And my dad was like, ‘You need to make this audition good because I don’t want to drive for two-and-a-half hours and have you be like, “Yeah, I forgot all my lines but hey, you know, it was fun.” ’ So I was like, ‘I’m gonna do this really good,’ and the audition was for SHAMELESS. I, of course, had no idea what SHAMELESS was at 12 or 13. I did that audition and the same day, I had to play a travel baseball game. So I had my sides in the car and I had a duffel bag that I was going to change into with all my baseball stuff. And that was my day. I got the call the next day that I got the part and that was the first job that I ever got. And then right after that, I got a job on Disney and my agency was like, ‘He’s 12. How did he just do a serious comedy with William H. Macy and then he just did Disney? We need to get this kid out more.’ So that was the start of my career.”
Hoffman appeared on an episode of GIRL MEETS WORLD, then was cast as Rudy in TALIA IN THE KITCHEN on Nickelodeon. “I was about 15 when I got that part,” he says. “That was my first series regular role and it shot in Florida, so I guess you could say part of my upbringing was in Florida because I did live there for a while to shoot that. We shot 40 episodes. Nickelodeon was experimenting at the time with different series and different budgets and stuff, so it was just a huge learning experience for me. It was shot telenovela style, so when I got B&B, some of my abilities that I developed from working on that show actually did cross over and I was like, ‘Oh, I remember this kind of schedule and this level of memorization.’ So it was a pretty decent experience.”
One that included going to school on set while working. “We were in the one little group that they decided they were going to put a ton of pressure on us to study really hard,” he muses. “I think I was required to do more school time than I would in a regular school. It was really intense. I would ask to be put into a room by myself and I would just work for, like, five hours solid. That was actually one of the best times I’ve ever had for focusing and learning. I took an AP psychology college course when I was that age and I was able to do it through there. It was interesting.”
Hoffman also began expanding his repertoire to include music, playing piano and guitar. “I started making music when I was younger; I wrote songs on the guitar. And then right around that time, I bought Logic Pro X on my computer, which means I just started trying to make music more digitally. I was around 14 or 15 and that became my little world. I studied it for hours, read books about music theory and just fell in love with it.”
When it came time to go to college, Hoffman headed to the Big Apple. “I was graduating high school and the only school on my list was NYU. Part of it was because of where it was, and part of it was the program only allowed 50 kids in a year. It was one of the most competitive music programs in the country. And I was like, ‘Man, if I get into that, there’s no way I can say no.’ I also applied to USC and they gave me a full ride and I turned it down. I still wonder if that was the perfect decision to make, but there are no perfect decisions.”
After graduation, Hoffman returned to the Left Coast, where he eventually landed a job working as a security guard at a ski resort. It was there that the audition for B&B — of which his aunt is a big fan — came his way. “I was on my lunch break and I was reading my sides and my boss saw and was like, ‘Oh, another audition, huh? Good luck.’ ”
He put together a self-tape with help from his father — “Shout-out to my dad; that was very nice of him” — then had an in-person audition at the studio. “I did one audition that was with Jacqui [MacInnes Wood, Steffy] and then the last audition I did was with Thorsten [Kaye, Ridge]. Jacqui was an absolute sweetheart, which helped my audition tremendously. And Thorsten was great because somewhat immediately, he asked me to go run the scene and then he just improvised every line he had and it was very fun.”
Hoffman secured the gig and had a little time before he reported to work to get his ducks in a row. Though his first day “is almost a blur”, he recalls feeling immediately welcomed. “Everyone was super-warm,” he shares. “The majority of my scenes were with Thorsten, so he was showing me the ropes and showing me how he deals with the environment there, and then I got to see how other actors dealt with it when they came in and, it was really great.”
And it’s only gotten better, Hoffman raves. “It’s been fantastic. The people that I get to work with are incredibly kind; they’re some of the nicest actors I’ve ever been able to work with, and everyone’s just been open and warm and accepting. When I introduce ideas, they’re listened to, which honestly means the world to me. And this new storyline with John [McCook, Eric] is absolutely an honor, especially that I get to do it with him, who I love working with,” he concludes. “I am very much looking forward to whatever comes next.”
Just The Facts
Birthday: October 16
Hails From: “I was born in UCLA Medical Center and I was raised partially in Santa Monica and partially in and around Big Bear, California.”
Sibling Revelry: “I have a little sister. Her name is Micah Rose Hoffman. She, you wanna talk about crazy facts about her? She wrote a book [for those who have loved and lost] before she was even in college and published it on Amazon. Talk about a crazy, crazy-talented human being.”
Give Him A Medal: The actor won many gold medals as a skier. “When I was younger, pre-13, 14, I would do downhill racing at Snow Summit [in Big Bear]. I was such a daredevil. I loved it. There were no brakes, all gas. If I could break the sound barrier on skis, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
Play Ball! Earned multiple MVP honors playing baseball. “I was primarily a pitcher, but I also enjoyed playing shortstop and my favorite thing to play was actually centerfield.”
What A Hack: Ran a YouTube channel where he shared instructional videos in online video game hacking. “I was, like, 9 when I made those. I almost had a minor in computer science in college but my adviser didn’t tell me I just needed one more class in order to get that minor. I love coding. I love Python. I still code all the time. I have little coding projects that I do just for fun.”
Music Man: Released the album Neighborhood Cat Watching Club in 2021. “Any of those songs that say Calvin Kingston on it, that’s me.”
Go-To Comfort Food: “Salmon. Weird choice. I know. But I absolutely love salmon.”
