Madison Reyes says her starring function in “Julie and the Phantoms” was tailored for her.
“I keep in mind studying Julie’s character description: ‘A 15-year-old Latin American woman, she’s a highschool scholar, she likes taking part in the piano and she will sing,’” Reyes, 16, tells The Post.
“I used to be like, ‘This jogs my memory of me!’ It actually caught my consideration.”
The musical comedy sequence, obtainable on Netflix, follows California excessive schooler Julie (Reyes), who’s grieving and struggling along with her pure music skills within the wake of her mom’s demise. When she finds an outdated CD from Sunset Curve — a boy band whose members died in 1995 getting ready to making it huge — she by chance summons their ghosts.
Julie, mysteriously, is the one residing one that can see them; she and band members Luke (Charlie Gillepsie), Alex (Owen Joyner) and Reggie (Jeremy Shada) be part of forces to assist one another discover that means of their lives — and afterlives.
Through the titular band they type collectively, Julie is ready to rediscover her joie de vivre and show herself in her faculty’s music program — and the three “phantoms” uncover that the world can see and listen to them after they play with Julie.
“She experiences the issues that youngsters undergo — grief and loss — [and] these issues usually are not talked about a lot in youngsters’ exhibits,” says Reyes, who grew up in Brooklyn. “And additionally the music side was a plus, as a result of not solely do I get to behave, I get to sing and carry out, which is one thing that I’ve at all times wished to do. It was like a bit current gifted to me.”
The actors all sing and play actual devices within the show’s musical numbers, although Reyes says they did that via a mixture of stay filming after which modifying within the tracks so the sound can be in sync.
It’s all helmed by government producer/ director/ choreographer Kenny Ortega, who’s identified for “Dirty Dancing,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and the “High School Musical” franchise.
“What was actually cool about it was that Kenny established that we do have a say within the course of. He actually made it clear to us that we had been his companions, not like he was a boss and we had been his employees,” says Reyes. “He actually wished us to know that it was a crew effort. Being capable of work with the person who does a lot for various generations is unimaginable and surreal.”
Reyes, who’s now in highschool in Pennsylvania, says that the manufacturing labored round her schedule as a scholar.
“I attempted to provide [the audition] my all, which was laborious as a result of I had [freshman year] finals. When I did get the callback, Netflix and the others had been very caring, like ‘Let’s get you to complete faculty first after which we’ll have you ever come out.’ So I completed my finals and the subsequent day I used to be on a aircraft to LA.
“I consistently look again on how issues simply fell into place,” she says. “Growing up I used to be like, ‘I need to be an actress; I need to be in a band and be a singer.’ You’re consistently flip-flopping. So with the ability to have this gig the place I get to do all of this stuff that I really like a lot in a single go was superb. There’s quite a lot of issues I need to strive [next], like be in a superhero film or in a Disney princess film or happening Broadway.
“But I’m simply taking it daily.”
Source: nypost.com
