"The Fosters" Star Maia Mitchell on Her Most Challenging Scene

I'm here on the Young Hollywood sofa joined by the lovely Myra Mitchell.

How are you? I'm great.

I was just saying I saw you in an interview like a year ago and you said how you had passion for pugs but you didn't have one.

I didn't have one.

And now you have one.

And then after that interview I thought about it and I was like, I should just get one. I'm an adult.

You are.

And then I got one and I realized I'm really not an adult. Okay. So I got very overwhelmed, but now she's settled down and we're good. We're cool.

What's the pug's name?

Sadie.

Why did you pick Sadie?

Um, because that was her name already. Okay. Um, but it was it was on my list of names too and then I wanted a black pug called Sadie and then I found her and it just all worked out.

What a coincidence. Look at that. Um, and now you shoot The Fosters which is season 2 now. You shoot that in LA. So does Sadie come to set?

Um, she's not allowed on the Warner Brothers set, but whenever we're on location she'll she'll come along with me.

And your your storylines in The Fosters have been quite a it's a challenging show, isn't it? It's it's like a roller coaster. It goes through quite a lot.

It can be. It can be. Yeah, I think especially the character I get to play Callie. Um, she's yeah, she's had a really rough childhood and uh and a really difficult upbringing and so that that comes with a lot of kind of heavy storylines and things for her to kind of sort through. So yeah, it's it's really heavy. Um, there's a lot of crying, a lot of days when I go home and I don't have any tears left. Oh. But no, it's fun. It's fun. It's it's enjoyable. I like it. I like drama and that's that's kind of what I'm passionate about. So

Okay. Is there an episode in particular that sticks out as being one of the most challenging or even the most enjoyable for you?

Yeah, there was an episode where uh there's a death in the family. It's uh Stef's father dies and so my character's decided not to live with uh The Fosters because she's having this relationship with with Brandon one of the children and uh she kind of has all of these memories of her mother's death and they all kind of come back to life and she kind of sees her mother's ghost and um, she kind of has a breakdown and and realizes that a family is what's more important to her and that was a huge episode for me. It was really heavy and uh

That sound you just you just told me right now and I was like Oh, that's sad. But now it's okay. We'll get through it. We'll get through it. This our happiness. I'm just a ray of sunshine. Go, wow. The poor D. O. P. is about to get in tears as well. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Josh is emotional for sure. Um, but it is uh you you watch it on the screen and it's such a tight-knit family. Is it like that on the set as well?

It is and I think that's why it comes across that way. Um, I know every show says that they are but we we really do feel like that and we try hard to, you know, meet up outside of, you know, working hours and we have this family dinner that we have like every Friday and yeah. So it it really is a close group and I love them a lot.

And your fans love love the show. They're like hardcore committed fans.

They are hardcore committed fans. I know it. Yeah, they are. They are. They're really really cool and uh and yeah we enjoy that a lot actually. It's been it helps scary, but fun and weird and awesome.

Yeah. Jennifer Lopez, executive producer. Yes. That must be quite cool.

Yeah, she's been on set. Okay. She's quite hands-on. Uh, she's always talking about the show and promoting it, which is huge for us. Um, yeah, we we love her. She's awesome. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean she's pretty successful. Jennifer from the Block. Um, and another huge phenomenon is uh Teen Beach Movie. Right. That was like

Yeah. That did well. It did well. It did really well. Uh, yeah, lots of children recognize me on the street now, which is funny and cute.

Do they expect you to just bust out a move? Or sing something.

Yeah, they do. I'm not a good dancer. So

You you you are. Don't be hard on yourself.

I I worked kind of hard at it. Uh, and I'm sure they they did a beautiful editing job of me. Yeah, no, it was yeah.

And can you tell us much about what happens in the second one? Is it opposed to the first one?

Um, yeah. So basically, uh, the I can't tell you how but the 60s characters end up in uh the modern modern reality and so we have to try and kind of get them home while they're in, you know, high school context, you know, freaking everyone out.

Interesting. Yeah. Interesting stuff. I love that. See, keeping keeping busy making moves. But we've got the holidays coming up that we were just talking about. Right.

I'm going to Australia for a month. I'm just going to be off the grid and with my friends and family and yeah, I'm excited.

Any like traditions that you do or anything like that that you were talking about?

Well, in Australia it's it's really warm during the holidays. So um all my friends are going to be home because that's like kind of our summer break. And so usually I meet up with some friends on Christmas or family and we'll go to the beach or like have a barbecue or something like that.

I always wondered when you live in a when you grow up in like a hot country where it's hot at Christmas, did it ever worry you about Santa coming down a chimney because you wouldn't you probably won't have that many chimneys if it's always

I mean, I feel like he has a summer outfit, no? I don't know.

This is what I'm asking you. Like some red shorts with little

Well, okay. Never picture Santa in red shorts. I'm sure some people have if they're into that sort of thing. My bad, my bad.

But you never know. If I was going to go to Australia tomorrow, where should I go and three things I should do?

You should go to Byron Bay because that's where I'm from. Okay. But it actually is beautiful. I'm very biased, but you should definitely go there. Melbourne is my favorite city in the planet. Uh it's really cool and there's like a lot of cool galleries and uh shops and the culture is just really interesting there. Okay. And then I would say go to the Great Barrier Reef before it's all gone. Sorry, I'm such a downer. Can we start this again? Can we get some coffee or something just just to prove you. I can be fun.

Um You mentioned where you're from, um which is a small is a small little town, right? Is that right? In in that area?

It's a tiny little town. Tiny little town. Tiny little one.

And your dad is a cabbie your dad is a cabbie and your mom's in your mom's in education. So how did this happen?

I don't know.

You don't know?

I don't know. Still trying to figure it out. Still wondering how I got here. No, we had a an agent surprisingly in our small town who I had gotten family photos

Everyone probably thought you were so strange. This agent.

Yeah. Um but no we we got family photos taken with this agency Uh but that was it and then they kind of we bumped into them on the street because it is that small of a town and they remembered me and they were like, look, there's this audition for this show you should do it and I was like, oh, okay. Uh and I did it and I booked it and then kind of went from there and I started working a little bit in Australia, but my parents were very very strict about me staying in high school and uh staying in our town.

As they should be.

Yes. Uh I I'm thankful for it in hindsight, but it was enraging at the time. Uh but yeah. No. So I had a pretty regular upbringing with like pockets of weird worky stuff.

Right. Yeah. It's amazing. And now and now look at it. Look at the story. That sounds like a Hollywood story in itself really.

It does, doesn't it? I'm just a cliche. It's a cliche. Just a typical cliche.

Well, we've sold Australia anyway. There's going to be people flying there. So that's good. Okay. So it's a success. You got to tune into The Fosters even though you're hardcore fans already will be. And we look forward to uh Teen Beach Movie 2. Lovely Myra Mitchell.