Peyton List on Taking Her "Jessie" Character to Summer Camp in "Bunk'd"

What's that smell? It's on your shoe. hanging out with someone new, then falling out of a camp canoe. Kikiwaka! Peyton List hanging out with me on the couch at the Young Hollywood Studio. Hello. I love your outfit.

Oh, thank you.

So cute. We're also shoe twins.

I know. I realized. Yes. I love it. I love it.

I have to congratulate you, you were just announced as the new face of Bongo.

Yes. I'm so excited. I'm like following in the footsteps of like Vanessa Hudgens, which is amazing.

What is it like being part of that kind of sisterhood, you know, Vanessa Hudgens, you have Ashley Benson, you have Lucy Hale, all these great girls also in the ABC Disney family.

When I was younger I would always like flip through magazines and see them like in Teen Vogue or 17 like see who the new Bongo girl was. So when they first told me they were like, "Peyton, do you want to be the Bongo girl?" I was freaking out. I was so excited. I was like, "Yes." That's not even a question.

Well, like Emma, who you played on Jesse, and we'll continue to play on Bunk'd. You're really into fashion. Yeah. Right? So Bongo is a really really nice fit for you.

It really is. Yeah.

Are you excited to wear all the outfits?

I am. I'm so excited. It was so funny because I did a shoot for Teen Vogue and there was like a lot of the Bongo pieces incorporated and I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is so perfect."

Bunk'd, you reprise your role as Emma Ross. How fun is it that you get to take this character to now a new show, a new place, a new camp.

Emma is definitely being humbled because we're leaving the penthouse and we're leaving New York behind. And now we're going

Oh.

Yeah. Now we're going to our summer camp, Camp Kikiwaka. I know, it's like bittersweet. It's sad to leave the penthouse but at the same time, like we have so many new fun characters and so many new storylines. I feel like I'm playing like a whole different person. I feel like Emma's really matured. Well, she changes throughout the series. At first, she's still like the same the same old Emma. She's like bringing her bags and she's like, "Okay, who's going to be taking these?" And so like, no, girl, you're taking your own bags to your cabin. So.

Yeah, she has a job.

Yeah. An actual C. I. T. She's a counselor in training. Emphasis on the in training part. She is definitely learning throughout the series.

Don't believe that's ominous. Is that like a sign of things to come?

Yeah, a little bit. I mean, she has to follow the footsteps of her mom, Christina Ross, who was like a legend at the camp, so.

Okay.

It's a lot of pressure for her when she first gets there.

And within the Ross family, the camp is kind of special, too, right? Like there's there's a whole backstory.

There's a whole backstory. I feel like we're getting like the Ross family origin story.

Exactly.

Yes. Like their parents actually met there. And the camp runner, Gladys, she has always been like jealous of our mom because she was in love with our dad. So she kind of takes it out on us a little bit. She's still a little bit bitter about it.

So is there some like revenge going on there?

I would say a little bit.

Okay. Okay. Zuri and Ravi, Emma's siblings, on the show also will be joining you. Anybody else from Jesse we can expect to see?

I hope so. I hope we have a couple of guest appearances. Cameron who's working right around the corner on Gamer's Guide. So he comes to visit a lot. And I just overheard someone saying, "Oh my gosh, you should come and guest star." So nothing official yet, but that would be pretty awesome if he got to come.

We're hearing the set is also really cool.

It's amazing. It's crazy. I never actually went to sleep away camp or summer camp, but I went to visit one for one day just like last summer. I went to go visit a summer camp and uh it looks

For research purposes.

Yeah, a little bit for research purposes. And it's pretty spot on. It's crazy. It looks just like their their room that they had there. Like our mess hall looks exactly like theirs. It's kind of weird.

Nice.

Yeah.

Did you ever want to go to camp growing up?

Oh, yeah. I always wanted to go to sleep away camp. But it was kind of like choose acting or sleep away camp. So I was like, "Oh, I should probably go with acting."

Yeah, it's kind of a tough choice.

I know. I mean, Uh huh.

Well, do you feel like you're getting a camp experience at the very least now that you're working on this show?

I definitely do. Yeah. Yeah. Especially because we are on a set with so many like teenagers and kids. It feels like I'm actually at summer camp. We want to do a night where we all spend the night on the set. We think that would be really awesome.

Nice.

Although we we've heard like weird spooky stories about our set because it is a really old stage. Like I Love Lucy shot around the corner and everything.

What?

We've just heard like weird stories.

Okay.

Like someone got like a on like a weird phone call of a little girl crying like in the middle of the night. Yeah. So we're like wondering if that's a good idea. And from

They got a phone call from the stage.

From the stage. From someone's dressing room. Yeah.

That is super creepy.

Yeah, and it was like in the middle of the night. No one's there.

Okay, well, when you have that sleepover, please rig the entire place with GoPro cameras.

I know. Like infrared sensors. We're going to We're going to go super paranormal activity/investigating investigating with that stuff.

All right. So let's do a little bit of word association with camp. S'mores.

Graham crackers.

What? What did you say?

Graham crackers.

Graham cracker. Okay, yeah, perfect. Singalongs. You guys do singalongs on set?

We do. Well, our theme song is basically like a sing a big singalong and it got stuck in my head. At first, I really Yeah.

Do you care to demonstrate? Do you care to teach me?

We say Kikiwaka! Oh, no. We can't say it. Everybody's like, "Kikiwaka!" That's our whole

That's it?

Well, we have a whole theme song, but Okay. So it's like hanging out with someone new, then falling out of a camp canoe. What's that smell? It's on your shoe. Kikiwaka! It's like the whole

Okay. We can do the Kikiwaka part.

Okay, exactly.

All right, repeat after me. Say, "Got a s'more in our hair."

Got a s'more in our hair.

Mosquitoes in our underwear.

Mosquitoes in our underwear.

The shower's broke, but we don't care.

The shower's broke, but we don't care.

Kikiwaka!

Kikiwaka!

I got it.

Yes. Nice. Nice, Lizzie. That's like part of our theme song. We got it. That's So much fun.

And last word association. Bunk.

Bunk. Ouch! Like hitting my head on the bunk. That's all I remember.

If you had a bunkmate, or if you could choose anybody to to bunk with from the cast, who would it be?

Ooh. I'd have to say Miranda who plays Lou on the show. Miranda and I are becoming like best friends. And we have sleepovers all the time now. Which is really nice. So I'd probably pick her as a bunkmate.

You do a ton of stuff outside of this show as well. You are dropping your first album. Is that true?

Um, I mean, not yet. I'm still like in the beginning process of working on music and everything. But I'm writing my own songs and playing the guitar and just in the very beginning process. But hopefully one day there will be some new stuff.

What's your favorite part about being able to do that when you're not acting?

Oh my gosh. Well, it's awesome. It's a way for like me to like let out my feelings and just sort of like write and just like a stream of consciousness. I I don't know. I just like I love just like letting it out and writing a song, but also just playing guitar and it helps me like if I want to I'll go running or I'll write. That's basically the two things that let's just let out steam.

I don't like the running part. But the writing part I can I can I can go with. I can I can do. Do you think you'd be a good camp counselor?

I think I would. I mean, I really love kids. And I have a little brother who's 10. And I'm somewhat can control him. So I think I'd be a pretty good counselor.

Wait. Hold on a second. Wait. Control him? Hold on a second.

Yeah. I can keep him like tamer. I mean Because he's insane. All right. My little brother. I'm the oldest in the family. I mean, I'm only older than him by 10 minutes, but as the only girl, I feel like I have to keep them in check.

I read that phones aren't allowed at Camp Kikiwaka. Is this true?

This is true. Yeah, we only have cell phone Sundays. So there is like a whole storyline about that and a whole episode where we're all trying to like sneak our phones in because Emma's pretty addicted to her phone. As am I in real life. So that would be really hard for me.

As we all are.

Definitely be one of the hardest things.

Do you think you could survive? Do you think you could just use your phone on Sundays? Have you ever tried this?

I haven't tried it in real life, but maybe I should. Maybe I should try. I feel like we should all, you know, do some digital detox.

I agree.

I have this app. Unless you're watching Young Hollywood, of course. When we're on set, we're not even allowed to use our phones. So it kind of is real summer camp.

Wow. You have a lot of self control then. Yeah. Good for you.

I know. That's really good for me.

That's really awesome. Well, Peyton, can't wait to see the show. I think it's going to be so much fun. Thank you so much. Okay, should we go out on like a Camp Kikiwaka chant? Clapping game. I don't know. What do you do at camp?

We can yell, "Kikiwaka!" Okay. Okay. That's really all I know. I'm like a terrible camper. And counselor in training, too, apparently.

All right. 3, 2, 1. Kikiwaka!