“You’re a musician and an actress, which came first for you?
Music is something I’ve had a passion for since I was very young. Acting I came to later, at 12 or 13, when I was old enough to say ‘Hey Mom and Dad, I want to get an agent. I want to get into the business’. Their response was, like, ‘What? Kid, be normal’ . I love music and acting dearly and they’re obviously very different, but they also complement each other, which is crazy because they’re completely different art forms.
When did your first break into show business come?
When I was 14, I auditioned for a TV show on the Disney channel called Phil of the Future. I had to rehearse with the lead actor. Luckily the chemistry clicked and I got the part. The show only ran for two years but it was a great experience. I was so young and new to things. It really gave me an insight into the kind of etiquette that you have on set, learning your lines and having to work every day, all that stuff.
You were home-schooled as a child?
I went to regular elementary school as a kid, but was home-schooled instead of going to high school. I loved learning at home, I felt like I could work at my own pace – be that slower, faster, whatever. I could work a little more on things that maybe I struggled with. I had a personal tutor in maths, for example. Besides, there were so many other activities I wanted to do that I couldn’t have done if I was in school.
I imagine all teenagers have activities they’d rather do than be in school! I mean, I had stuff I wanted to accomplish in my life that I couldn’t have done if I was in school. Home-schooling works for some. For others, it can be a little bit isolating not to have anybody to hang out with. Thankfully, I had my sister with me, which was great. But it’s a common thing to do in the business, because kids are busy.
In the film ‘Bandslam’, your romantic rival is Vanessa Hudgens.
Well, we’re not really rivals. But she thinks we are.
She plays a bookish character who seems to get no male attention whatsoever . . . that’s a bit of a stretch for the audience, no? Yeah, I know, she’s kind of a geek. It’s interesting though, because we all got to play characters that we hadn’t really played before. I’m sure that benefited us as actors. We all just had our own distinct looks and our own distinct personality that we brought to the table.
Disney stars always present themselves as being almost obnoxiously wholesome. Is it all a sham? Are you secret party animals behind the scenes? I don’t know if I’d say that, but we had really great fun making this movie. It was shot in Austin, Texas. Gaelan and I were working every day for, like, two months. When we had our days off we’d hang with the cast and go, like, frigging bowling or Vanessa and I would go shopping. We did so much random stuff it was a blast.
Now I probably wouldn’t fall into the film’s target demographic, but I was impressed with some of the music choices I know, it wasn’t the typical teen pop you’d expect – it was classic music, which I loved, and which was really what brought me to the script.
Would you have been familiar with stuff like Nick Drake and the Velvet Underground?
Absolutely, I love Cheap Trick and David Bowie is just amazing. I got to play Amphetamine, which is now one of my favourite songs. It was really cool and, as I think you can appreciate, it was a bit of a risk for a teen/tween audience. My character Charlotte, too, is super-cool and lively and energetic, but she’s got an edge too. She has these things she’s insecure about. Which makes her a typical teenager, I guess.
Is it hard for a bunch of kids on a film set to knuckle down and do the work, when that must go against all of your natural instincts?
You know, it’s all about having fun and getting the work done. It’s a job obviously, but at the end of the day you have to enjoy what you do. So everybody is usually professional on set and understands that, hey, we’re making a film here. So we wanna have fun, but we’re here to do our job and to do it to the best of our abilities.” – Irish Times
