An Interview with the Stars of Teen Beach 2 #TeenBeach2Event #InsideOutEvent

My oldest daughter will be starting her senior year in high school in the fall and she will be heading to college in about 14 short months.  [Insert panic here] As of right now, the most we know about her plans are two things.  1.  She’s going to college somewhere.  2.  She wants to dance. As much as possible. Forever. For her living.

So there I was last week sitting down for a Q&A session with triple-threats Chrissie Fit (Chee Chee) and Jordan Fisher (Seacat) from Teen Beach 2 who dance, act, and sing for a living and I wanted to pick their brains! Having just screened Teen Beach 2 and watched Teen Beach Movie probably a dozen times, I imagined my daughter living her dream dancing on the big screen amongst these talented stars. These two entered the room with gorgeous smiles and confidence, and with no time to spare, Gayle from Disney Gals asked the first question and took the words right out of my mouth!

I’d like to know your dance backgrounds…did you start as singers and then get into dancing or did you do both at once? How did you get into it?

Chrissie answered first and let us know she was a singer first then became an actress.  She didn’t really have a professional  dance background (other than learning Salsa and Meringue from her Cuban roots) but Teen Beach has helped here “look like one!”  She learned the most doing Teen Beach Movie and has appreciated that so much!

Jordan:

It’s a different kind of dynamic. You know you walk into a rehearsal full of a bunch of people that you watch on So You Think You Can Dance and you know incredible choreographers and incredible dancers… Yeah I’m an Actor. I walk in I’m like, ‘Okay here we go.  Let’s uh–let’s get this going.’

Jordan chimed in with a cute story about joining Drama Club at age 10.  He began acting, singing, and dancing in the 5th grade because he had a crush on a girl in the club! Ultimately he didn’t fall in love with the girl, but fell in love with acting!

These young adults are so grounded, so honest, and so sweet!  I loved how Chrissie tells a similar story of persistence and how she fell in love with acting.

That’s so crazy ‘cause I guess my acting story is similar to yours because in 5th grade this Spanish Teacher was making this production and it was a just like a gypsy kind of dance, singing kinda’ thing and only 5th graders can go.  My crush was a 6th grader and I was like, ‘I need to be in this show.’ [LAUGHS] And I’m like, ‘Fall in love with me.’ So I went to the Teacher, Ms. Sanchez. And I‘m like, ‘Ms. Sanchez can I be in the show?’ She’s like, ‘No.’  She’s like, ‘Um you’re a 5th grader?’ ‘No and also there’s no roles.’ So I went home and my neighbor was in the show and I [asked] “Can I see the script?” I read it and I noticed there wasn’t a bad girl in it. I said, ‘Well there has to be a bad girl.’ So I went the next day and I said, ‘Can I play a bad girl?’

I pitched her an idea.  I don’t know if she felt like sorry for me or she was impressed that I took this initiative and she put me in the show. The guy didn’t fall in love with me. [LAUGHS] ButI fell I love with acting.

The next question dealt with what kind of advice they had for an aspiring Musician, Artist, Dancer?  This too was something that I was eager to hear so I could talk to and work with my daughter for her future!  Jordan answered first.

Know why you’re doing it.  There are a lot of people that come out to, to L.A. and move to New York with the idea of becoming famous.  Typically those people don’t find success in their field because their passion is driven from a very different place. [It’s the] people that do what they do because they love it that tend to find success.  Because people gravitate towards people that are like-minded you know what I mean? So understand why you’re doing it firstly.

[Second] It’s so– it’s cliché and you’re gonna’ hear it at times, but I just don’t take no for an answer.

Jordan tells a story of song writer Diane Warren and her love for writing.  She writes every day, she pitches, she has hustle and drive.  Such important information and goals for life!  Chrissie continues with her two cents:

It’s in that kind of world it’s not like a sprint, it’s a marathon. Have patience, educate yourself. Not just with the craft that you wanna’ do.  Like the acting, dance and music and also you should really try in school. So much of my artistic [side] and choices that I’ve made have come through education. So really apply yourself, give everything you do 100% because then it’s more likely that the thing that you invest the most time in you’ll give 110%. Don’t give up. Keep it up.

Finally, what can we take away from the movie? Coming from Chrissie, she tells us there are many important messages in the movie for young girls.  Female empowerment that Mack and Lela exhibit is shown in their lack of competition and pursuit of strong friendship!  Friendship is important in the movie between the girls as well as what Ross and Garrett develop.

So aside from all of like the great you know musical numbers and the dancing and all that stuff I feel that this is a great movie for kids because it just shows you how important friendship is and it shows you like healthy and positive friendships with females. And it also it shows that you should totally believe in yourself. You know Ross’s character Brady has this amazing talent. He can make these surfboards and you know he’s kind of insecure about it until Tanner just kind of gives him the confidence to share this with Mack. And he’s so open and so positive and you know we have that support. It’s a system and it‘s up to moms and dads to like encourage your kids to say, ‘you can do this.’ And you can believe in yourself and you have the support system. So I think that is the biggest thing that comes out of this movie um aside from all the cool clothes. (LAUGHS)

This wisdom made my heart happy.  I felt I could go home and help my daughter and encourage her to pursue her dreams.  The words Chrissie and Jordan shared apply perfectly to my daughter’s future and that of any young person heading out into the world.  It was such a pleasure sitting down with them, I hope they know how much it meant to all of us to take their advice and share it with our children!  I hope they know what strong role models they are and thanks to Disney for giving them a place to showcase all their talent!

If you haven’t seen my dance lesson with the stars of Teen Beach 2, check it out!  And, stay tuned for the premiere of Teen Beach 2 on Disney Channel Friday June 26!

Disney sent me on a 3 day all expenses paid adventure but all the opinions are 100% my honest opinion!