While fans won’t see Josh Heuston in season 2 of Off Campus, the actor remains booked and busy with his first role since his shocking departure.
Heuston, 29, will star in the upcoming film adaptation of author Lauren Asher‘s Throttled, based on her Dirty Air book series. The adaptation will be directed by Nzingha Stewart and written by Melissa Osborne. Elizabeth Banks and Maz Handelman will produce alongside Garrett Grant, Jennifer Gibgot and Andrew Panay of Ethea Entertainment. (Asher will also serve as an executive producer alongside Alison Small.)
Asher’s Dirty Air series comprises four interconnected romance novels, all set in the world of professional car racing. The author debuted the series in 2020 with Throttled, followed by Collided (2020), Wrecked (2020) and Redeemed (2021).
The Throttled novel follows the forbidden romance between up-and-comer driver Noah Slade (played by Heuston) and Maya Alatorre, the sister of one of his rivals.
Heuston recently rose to fame after Off Campus premiered on Prime Video. Season 1, which debuted in May, centered around the “sexy and fun ‘opposites attract’ romance between quiet songwriter, Hannah, and Briar University’s all-star hockey athlete, Garrett.” In addition to the leads — played by Ella Bright and Belmont Cameli — Heuston had a scene-stealing role as Justin.
Despite Hannah’s (Bright) crush on Justin, her connection with Garrett (Cameli) was stronger and she chose the latter. Justin, for his part, still had more story that could have been explored before news broke that Heuston wouldn’t appear in season 2.
“[He is] not [in] next season, but I love Josh and I would not write him off if I can find a way to bring Justin back at some point,” creator Louisa Levy told TV Guide at the time. “We never got a chance to meet Stella, who is the person he ends up with in the book. So maybe we’ll find a way to fold him into a future season.”
Levy noted that it wasn’t always the plan for Justin to be absent. “We don’t have him [available] next season, but never say never,” she added.
Heuston already had another role in the works opposite Ryan Corr in a Biblical horror-thriller titled The First Exorcist. Drawing inspiration from one of the accounts in the Gospels, the film will follow the story of Alexios.
Before it was confirmed that Heuston wasn’t returning as Justin, the actor spoke exclusively to Us about a possible return, sharing in May, “That’s above my pay grade but I just hope Justin finds love and continues to be happy while writing music.”
Heuston had hope that Justin would do “all right” for himself.
“Justin is following his heart. He’s a little lover boy at heart,” he noted. “I think things went the way that they went but I think he’ll just continue to do that. He’ll probably go write some nice music about how heartbroken he is and then come back and try to find his love.”
At the time, Heuston saw Justin yearning “over someone else” in the future.
“I just tried to give Justin as much as possible. A lot of the time if you fell into a stereotype of another cool guy that does music on campus, you wouldn’t have that love or affinity for him,” he told Us. “My main thing was just trying to make him as good as possible.”
Off Campus is streaming on Prime Video now.
