Big Time Rush first aired on Nickelodeon in 2009 before the band went into a temporary hiatus in 2014
When Big Time Rush first came together, the goal was to create a television series about a fictional boy band. Instead, the project evolved into something much bigger, turning James Maslow, Kendall Schmidt, Carlos PenaVega and Logan Henderson into a real-life group with a devoted fanbase years after the show’s original run.
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| Carlos PenaVega, Kendall Schmidt, Tanya Chisholm, Stephen Glickman, Logan Henderson, and James Maslow. | Carin Baer/Nickelodeon/Everett |
Looking back on the early days of Big Time Rush during an appearance on The Joe Vulpis Podcast on July 6, 2026, Maslow reflected on the uncertainty that came before the success, including a costly first pilot that never made it to television.
Maslow explained that he auditioned for the show at age 17, but it didn’t actually air until two years later. While PenaVega and Henderson were also hired for the show at the time, producers originally cast another actor in Schmidt’s role - Curt Hansen, who later played Dak Zevon on the show.
“Some super fans know this, it’s not a secret ... but we shot a million-dollar pilot without Kendall. It was with a different actor,” he shared.
However, Maslow noted that the original pilot — and therefore the original version of the show itself — was shelved as producers went back to the drawing board, feeling like it “was not quite right” and they needed to do “another national cast.”
“The reality is, and I remind myself of this all the time, [we] could have gone through those two years, those four screen tests, the million-dollar pilot, and then back to nothing, and then got it picked up, and then it still could have not worked,” Maslow, 35, told Vulpis. “So, I’m just grateful that so many people fell in love with the show and the band.”
For Maslow, the biggest surprise wasn’t so much the cost of the unaired pilot as the fact that the project got another chance at all. After investing in a version of the show that never made it to television, he assumed the opportunity had come and gone.
“I mean, for the most part, you think it’s done,” he recalled. “You’re like, well, they’re not going to do that again. It’s like, I guess it didn’t work.”
At the time, Maslow was still a teenager trying to understand an industry that rarely explained itself. Between multiple screen tests, recording songs and waiting for decisions that were completely out of his hands, he said there was no way to know whether the series would be revived or quietly disappear.
“While you’re technically an adult, you’re a young adult,” he highlighted. “So the comprehension of, like, how does the movie industry work? How does Hollywood work?... Like just trying to understand all of that, much less trying to figure out why people do what they do when they do.”
When the project was eventually reworked, Maslow said another unexpected development unfolded behind the scenes.
“I think initially [the creators] thought, ‘We’ll just write [the music] for them,’ but they picked four guys who actually write music and want to contribute,” he said, before explaining how the project naturally evolved into something much more authentic.
“So it became art imitating life in many, many ways where they set out going, ‘Hey, we’re going to hire actors to make a show, and maybe they can play music or something outside of this,’ but we proved to be like, no, we’re actually going to be a band,” Maslow shared.
That shift helped turn the band into more than just a hit Nickelodeon series. Maslow, Schmidt, PenaVega and Henderson went on to become a successful recording and touring act after a journey that once felt far from certain.
“At that stage in my life and all of our lives and careers, that was it. It’s like this either works or it doesn’t,” he recalled. “And if it doesn’t, I don’t know what to do, but I guess it’s back to the drawing board and I guess I’ll figure it out.”
Fortunately, the gamble paid off, transforming an unaired $1 million pilot into the launchpad for a career that is still going strong today.
“Thank God it worked and it gave us a hell of a start,” Maslow told Vulpis.
Original source: People.
From People:
James Maslow Says He and Big Time Rush Costar Actually Grew Up Together, Recalls ‘Mind-Boggling’ Moment He Connected the Dots
The popular Nickelodeon series first aired in 2009
Sometimes Hollywood connections are made on set, but for James Maslow, one of his most memorable Big Time Rush relationships started years before the Nickelodeon series ever existed.
During an appearance on The Joe Vulpis Podcast, the actor and singer reflected on the unlikely path that reunited him with Stephen Kramer Glickman, who played Gustavo Rocque on the sitcom.
While the Nickelodeon series eventually launched the band Big Time Rush — made up of Maslow, Kendall Schmidt, Carlos PenaVega and Logan Henderson — Maslow’s connection to Glickman was already years in the making.
Looking back, Maslow summed up just how far back the connection goes, noting that they knew each other “before [the show] was even a nugget of an idea.”
“Before the show was even a thought, before it was an idea, Glickie and I were just family friends,” Maslow shared, noting that “it’s not like we were, like, buddies,” but rather their parents were good friends.
As Maslow explained, their families were close while growing up in California, regularly spending Jewish holidays together
“I mean, we had family friends in San Diego… It was his family and one other family,” Maslow shared. “And we would just get together for like the occasional Shabbat dinner and mostly like high holiday dinners, you know, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah and things like that.”
As he recalled, those gatherings often took place at a family friend’s impressive downtown San Diego penthouse, where the adults would spend the evening talking while the kids kept themselves occupied. At the time, there was no reason to imagine those childhood get-togethers would one day lead to the pair sharing scenes on a hit television series.
Years later, however, Maslow entered the extensive audition process for Big Time Rush, recalling that he first auditioned in Los Angeles at age 17.
Producers spent months searching for the right cast, bringing hopefuls back through multiple rounds as they worked to find the right chemistry. The process even included filming an unaired pilot with a few different actors, which was ultimately shelved.
The original pilot initially cast a different actor in Knight’s role and another actor as Gustavo. However, Glickman ended up being cast at the last minute, just a few days before filming began.
It wasn’t until Maslow walked in right before filming began and realized who got the role that everything suddenly came full circle.
“I remember walking in and seeing his audition tape and just going, wait, that’s Glickie,” Maslow recalled. “And they looked up at me and went, ‘Oh yeah, it’s Stephen Glickman.’ And I went, ‘No, like I grew up with that dude — like that’s Glickie!’ ”
“No one else understood how it was so mind-boggling to me,” he added. “Like I haven’t talked to this guy in forever, since I was a kid.”
Seeing a familiar face from his childhood made an already unforgettable experience even more surreal, especially after so many years out of touch.
“I was so excited,” Maslow told Vulpis. “And truthfully, like none of us could imagine that character being anybody but Stephen Kramer Glickman.”
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From People:
James Maslow Admits That It’s ‘Always Been a Struggle’ to Perform ‘Cheesy’ Big Time Rush Theme Song
Big Time Rush officially reunited in 2021 after a seven-year hiatus
For many fans, the Big Time Rush theme song is an instant hit of nostalgia, but performing it on stage hasn’t always been as exciting for the band as it has been for the audience.
“It was written as a theme song, in my defense, which means it wasn’t written to be sung… to be performed live like regular music,” James Maslow said on a recent episode of The Joe Vulpis Podcast.
Yet, as the conversation continued, the now-35-year-old singer explained how the fans ultimately helped him see the song in a completely different light, admitting he has “learned to love [it] more.”
Big Time Rush — made up of Maslow, Kendall Schmidt, Carlos PenaVega and Logan Henderson — was formed in 2009 for the Nickelodeon show of the same name.
In the early 2010s, they had three top 20 albums and five worldwide tours before splitting up in 2014. However, the boy band reunited in 2021 and has been performing for packed arenas and reconnecting with fans across the globe ever since.
While the theme song became one of the most recognizable parts of the group’s legacy, Maslow explained that turning it from a television introduction into a full concert performance was never a simple transition.
“It’s always been a struggle, and we’ve always found a way to like put it in a mashup or sing half of it and like move on, and we still do to some degree because, again, it’s a theme song and it’s cheesy by nature,” Maslow admitted.
However, the reaction from fans has continued to change the way he and the group approach the song. Maslow explained that seeing fans lose themselves in the performance helped him embrace the track in a new way.
“When it hits, people lose their minds, and it’s fun,” he told Vulpis. “I’ve let a lot of the ego go with that, where now I actually enjoy that song to some degree — maybe not the full thing — but you know, a little bit of it.”
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