Ryan Rottman will play an out-and-proud
activist in season 4 of the CW's nighttime teenage drama 90210.
According
to Entertainment
Weekly, the former TeenNick star will play Shane, a “smart,
handsome gay 20-something who is confident in his identity and is
committed to fighting for marriage equality.”
The 27-year-old Rottman is best known
for playing Joey Colvin on the TeenNick series Gigantic. He's
also appeared in the quickly canceled CBS musical-dramedy series Viva
Laughlin – which starred Lloyd Owen, Hugh Jackman and Melanie
Griffin – the Nickelodeon sitcom Victorious, and the ABC
Family comedy-drama Greek. In 2009, he played Doctor J. Tupac
on the web
series Valley
Peaks.
The move comes after producers
announced that Trevor Donovan's all-American gay character, Teddy
Montgomery, would
not return as a regular next year, and Freddie Smith, who played
Teddy's boyfriend Marco, has moved to daytime television. Smith, 23,
is now playing Sonny Kiriakis, the first openly gay character on the
NBC soap opera Days of our Lives.
Season four of 90210 begins
Tuesday, September 13.