Inside Hollywood Arts Star's Nickelodeon Promo Shoot

Behind the scenes, Nickelodeon promo shoot. I don't know, I feel the buzz. Don't you?

Oh my gosh, so many feelings, so many emotions right here. It's just all the excitement.

I'm never leaving.

I know. I I don't wanna leave this place. I'm not going home. They can cancel my flight.

Emmy Liu-Wang, Lesley Robins, Young Hollywood. And it is premiere day!

All the emotions are coming right now. I'm excited, I'm anxious, I'm like a little nervous. Mostly excited.

Okay, it is premiere day of Netflix's new Victorious spin-off!

Yes!

What does it feel like to be part of that universe now? Did you watch it? Would you

Oh my gosh. I I don't feel like I'm stepping into their universe as much as like almost transitioning. Cuz I've been in this universe since I was for as long as I can remember as the biggest fan of the show. And I remember running around my house, you know, screaming the songs. I remember just fantasizing about which character I'd be on the show.

Take me behind the scenes of the show. In In my mind, I'm thinking of, you know, "Okay, cut!" and then like a cappella happens behind the scenes.

You're like dead-on. Cut cameras, we are continuing the jokes on, probably. We're like improvising. They're like, "Oh, no, no, cut, cut, cut! We said cut!" But there's a bit of that. There's a bit of like always harmonizing. And this is like, as iconic as it is to me, it's so special to everybody else too. And it's just like, it's a bunch of theater kids and arts kids who are literally just put right where they would be in real life.

You said the word theater kid. You are a theater girl.

I am a theater girl!

I feel like we're meant to be because I'm a- like

You too?

musical theater like I've lived

Uh, yeah.

So, so tell me like how that has prepared you for what you're doing now.

I mean obviously Hollywood Arts is just such a theater-coded place. And also, it's just like the idea of like going big for entertainment, which is a big thing in multi-cam comedy also. On Hollywood Arts, you know, you just it's never It's never like too It's never too much. You're never too much. You're never too crazy. It's like all the chaos and all the unbelievable, wild stuff that we get into. That's the stuff that I feel like I've really learned from theater too, because you want to be big on the stage. You want people to feel what you're feeling from the back row or the front row.

By the way, you're a Queens girl, I'm a Long Island girl.

No way! We're so close!

We got New York! We We are like sisters.

Yeah. Come on, New York!

New York is in the house right now. And

That's awesome.

performing arts school in New York, so you're kind of doing what you do anyway, but now there are cameras watching you.

That's exactly what it feels like actually, walking onto the set of Hollywood Arts, because there's acting classes. I mean people go to school at 8:00 AM and like go to math class, we go in and we crawl around on the stage and pretend to be an animal. Or we go to class and like, "All right, opera warmups now, go!" And it's just like It's an insane feeling. It's like crazy. It's chaotic. You don't know what to expect at a performing arts school, but it's like It's just so full of people who are passionate about what they do, and I feel like that's exactly what our set felt like, so many people just putting so much love and energy and heart and their own talent and creativeness into the show. And I think that's what makes it so special.

Yeah. So take me into your family history, cuz you literally grew up with music all around you.

I did. My parents are cellists. My grandparents are singers. And it's just like, when I grew up, I just always remembered music in the house. It was either my parents practicing, or it was them teaching some students on the weekends. Or even after school, most kids would go home or go to soccer practice, I sat in a music practice room and did my homework while my parents taught piano or cello lessons. So it was just like music has always been in my life, and I feel like that's what's inspired me so much in my career path, cuz music was my first love. Singing was my first love, and that's kind of what brought me here with It's one of my favorite parts of being in Hollywood Arts, the music.

If there could be a character from the old show that could come onto Hollywood Arts,

Oh, gosh.

who do you want? Who Who would you like to make a cameo?

Well, like everybody. Like, can we say a whole cast? Like new cast, old cast, like moment?

What What moment would you like?

Okay, um, I want a moment where they're like You know how like alumni visit their old schools, and I'm sure everybody in the old cast, obviously like crazy talented, where like they're legends at the school, and I think that they come back. Maybe they like have a new little moment. They They see each other in their friend group. They see us and they're like, "Hey, that kind of looks familiar."

Mhm.

Because all of our characters, we have different personalities. We're not like carbon copies of the originals, but something that I always felt was really cool about our set was that we had a similar bond and chemistry that the old cast did, too. We're all very different from each other. We still mesh perfectly, and the cast is like family. We stayed at the same place while we were filming, so we really got that bonding experience. And I think that that's such a beautiful part of the friendships in the show.

Well, and your character, her name is Pepper, and there's a little pepper in you.

Yes. I do. A little pepper.

Tell me about Pepper.

All right, Pepper is like, she's the wild card of the group, I would say. She's She does everything, skills-wise and personality-wise. She's funny. She absolutely never thinks, but, you know what, she like, I feel like she's the type who's just effortlessly good at whatever she does, and she's like, "Oh, cool. Okay." Um, that's not me personally, but that is Pepper. And she she sings, she does K-pop dance, she plays cello, guitar, ukulele, you name it, she kind of just does it all. And, above all, she's just this super, super confident girl. Not in a loud obnoxious way, but she's like, she knows who she is. And that, I feel like that's really rare in to see in people nowadays, and like, how I feel about myself, too.

Yeah.

So, I feel like playing her has given me a little bit of inspiration like, "This is who I am and I should love who I am."

Well, you're a New Yorker. So New Yorkers have a vibe that, you know, nothing can nothing can move you. So what's something like about you as a New Yorker that Hollywood is never going to change?

True. Wow, um, as a New Yorker, I think that like, the New Yorker in me is like the theater girl in me. You know what I mean? Like, I'm I I've been the biggest Broadway fan ever. My dream, when I actually started out, I I I swore to myself up and down, if I ever ended up anywhere successful, it would probably be Broadway first, which is crazy, because I've ended up so many other places. But I mean, it's always still wanna been one of my dreams to be on a Broadway stage and to sing and to do my thing there, so, I mean, I'm grateful for any opportunity I've I get, which has been a lot and I'm very lucky.

So here's the thing. There are so many theater kids in New York, so the audition process for this show must have been insane. Or did you just get a call and you didn't have to audition? Walk me

Yeah. Oh, gosh. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

Can you take me through the audition process for this, please?

Of course. The audition process was so much fun. It was like

Wait, fun?

It was so much fun, and I didn't expect that. But like, they auditioned kids, not just I'm I imagine there's quite a selection in New York alone, but they auditioned all around Canada and America.

Oh.

So there was, I think, forgot the number, that's like around 50,000 people who auditioned, so

Don't.

I may have that number wrong, but it was a lot. It was a lot of people who auditioned. And my The funny thing about my audition was I didn't audition for Pepper. I auditioned for Emmy, which is really funny, but like, you know, considering my name.

That's hilarious. Okay, you have to get back on set for the

I do.

Nickelodeon promo shoot, which you may or may not be getting slimed. We'll see you later. Okay. Can you show me around? I wanna like see your little area.

Absolutely. Yes! Let's do it.

Let's see our dressing room for the day. Oh! There's a lot.

Yes, for the day. There's a ton of makeup in there, everything to make me look look good, you know?

For the day? Gorgeous!

So, this is my dressing room for the day, beautiful set-up. There's like gorgeous products in here, lit-up mirrors, my fitting, my clothes rack, a double for the dress for when I get slimed.

Show me in.

Right here. Let's do it. Let me show you how I get ready. So, I mean, today, it's a little cheap because I didn't get ready. My lovely makeup artist Lauren did.

But, I'm gonna show you some of the products that she used on me. Let me see if I can pick out Okay, so this here, my eyelash curler, looks like a little It looks scary. It's not that scary. You just like kinda puff up your eyelashes like that. This is my go-to in real life. When I'm just going out and I'm feeling like I have a lazy day, I just take my eyelash curler and I just curl my eyelashes and go out and call it a day. A little mascara, of course. This is very important for me. Here, okay, this is This is like teasing powder, so you put it in the hair and you kind of like tease it a little bit because my hair tend to go really flat, so she teases it to give this a little bit more volume on top. Over here we have our curling iron, so my hair can look like this. In case what my hair looks like naturally, it's not like this. This is a rack of clothing. If you're wondering why we have two identical dresses, it is because I'm about to get slimed for the first time today. They did a little test on me. I'm not sure if you can see it. It's faded right now, but that's a little green tint from the slime test. Got a little a little taste of green slime, and I'm going to get I'm hearing 55 gallons of it in about maybe 20 minutes, so I may come back completely slimed. We will see.

You're flying in and out in like 24 hours.

I am. It's like It's such a fast trip. I wish I had the chance to explore LA a little bit more, but we take what we can get, you know?