Tonight on The CW is a 2 hour block of all new TV, with 90210 kicking off their 3rd season on a new night, before the season premiere of GOSSIP GIRL.  To gear up for tonight’s first episode of Senior Year, I had a chat with the charming Ryan Eggold who plays the also charming Ryan Matthews, teacher, semi-alcoholic, and [spoiler alert] new dad.  We talked about what’s coming up and what he’d love to see for Mr Matthews as the years go by at West Bev!

Getting excited for the season premiere?
Getting nervous for the season premiere!

Why nervous!
Because I don’t know what the heck I’m doing on that show, I hope it’s good!

How much time has passed between the crazy events of the finale, and where we are coming into tonight’s premiere?
A good bit of time.  The entire summer’s gone by and we find ourselves at the first day of school.  Everybody’s intersecting.  My character has cleaned up his act and is very excited to be a father with Jen, and the baby, so he stopped drinking and he’s in a much better place.  He’s back to his old grounded good self.  Everybody has had a romance or a break up or maybe moved.  Different things have happened for everybody, so that’s cool.

Are we going to continue revisiting what happened with Naomi and Ryan in the season finale?
It’s a running story line in this season, definitely for Naomi, and it’s a really great storyline.  It’s just really good, the way they deal with it, and what it does for Naomi’s character.  It’s surprising, and it’s very interesting, and it’s very well done.  And my character becomes a part of that, because he saw a glimpse of them in the room at the end of season 2, so Ryan comes into play with helping Naomi.

What has been your favorite thing that you’ve gotten to do so far this season?
My favorite moments have been with my actor-baby.  It’s been really cool.  It’s been really cool to hold this sweet little baby, and she’ll fall asleep in your arms, and it’s really cool.  Then you get to go home and fall asleep and not wake up to actually dealing with having a baby.  Kind of a nice way to have a baby [laughs].  It’s really been fun to play these moments of becoming father and not quite being ready for it, and having a child and what that means.  It’s something I’ve never gone through, so it’s really fun to play that.

How has Ryan changed from when we met him to now, aside from cleaning up his act, what’s the biggest thing that’s changed?
You know, he’s a little bit more mature, I think.  He’s a little more put together now.  He’s a little bit more sure of himself and his responsibility.  He’s owned up to his responsibility.  First season, he was very carefree, and kind of a wise-ass, and then Season 2, this self pity and this drinking, and sort of childish indulging in his own sorrow, being bummed out about Jen, and his love life and all of these things.  And now he’s really let go of a lot of that stuff, and grown up, and he’s ready to be there for someone else, and not just himself.

How’s the relationship been so far, because we know Jen wasn’t thrilled about a teacher raising a baby?
It’s really great, because there’s a lot of comedy with me and Sara, we get to have a lot of fun because they just don’t like each other [laughs], but they’re stuck being with this baby.  It’s really fun, sometimes you get the feeling that he just wants to punch her in arm, and you get the feeling that she wants to strangle him, and sometimes, she actually does, because she’s Jen.  It’s a lot of fun.  They can’t agree on a single thing.  Deep down, I think he really wants it to work out, and way, way deep down, so far that Jen doesn’t even know, I think Jen does, too.

What would you love to ultimately see for this character as the season progresses?
I don’t know, I’m really enjoying the working with the baby, being a father.  I know there’s some new romantic interests, so I’m interested to see what they do with that.  Like I said before, I’d like to see Ryan be fleshed out, as more than just sort of the teacher guy, but sort of a person with relationships and things, and so, I’m excited to see where they take it this season.

Why should people tune in tonight?
Oh gosh, they should tune in because everything that can happen in one episode of television happens [laughs].  It’s amazing.  When we read it at the table read, we were all just like, WHAT?  They’re doing that?  And that? And that?  It’s a really fun episode.  It’s a really traumatic, a lot happens.  There’s a lot of ground covered.

The season premiere of 90210 airs tonight on The CW at 8/7c.