Debby Ryan
With her time on The Suite life on Deck coming to a close after four years as Bailey Pickett, actress Debby Ryan has been prepping for her role on her very own Disney Channel series called Jessie. Check out Debby’s interview with Celebuzz, where she chats about the new series, as well as who she admires from the Disney Channel family!
Your new show Jessie centers around an 18-year-old girl who leaves home to become a nanny in New York. That’s quite different from the kid-centered shows on the Disney Channel. Is this show more aimed at young adults?
I feel like the fact that somebody has watched me grow up since I was 14-years-old and started on Suite Life on Deck and now I’m 18, instead of abandoning that demographic and starting over from scratch I think what we’re doing with Jessie is catering to those people [who grew up with me]. Those people who were 14 and are now 18 just like me. You can have people my age going through this experience: I’ve just graduated high school, what am I going to do? Where am I going to move? What am I going to do for a job? You have people looking to branch out from their families and are looking for ways to relate to other people.
I love Disney and I love the way we get to cater toward the young kids, but I also don’t want to abandon kids once they turn 18. [The audience] doesn’t have an age limit, they don’t expire. We’re really breaking new ground when it comes to growing up. The show is set on the Upper East Side so we will have a little Gossip Girl fashion or Sex and the City- type fashion, just on this network channel and I am so blessed to be a part of that.
So fashion will play a role in Jessie – do you have any personal interest in fashion?
I’m very much a clothes girl. Today, I went to two different showrooms to look at all sorts of clothes and I was up to my eyeballs in adorable couture. First and foremost I run around a lot doing meetings so I like to be comfortable, but I also like seeing different ways of raising the bar a bit and surrounding yourself with cute comfortable clothes that you can throw on at the last minute and they’ll look good.
Jesse’s going to be cleaning up after the kids so it’s not going not be impractical clothes but she is surrounded by fashion. She’ll be wearing stuff that we can run to the mall in and has a resourcefulness to it still put looks together. I am very excited about the fashion on the show as a result of me being excited about fashion in my personal life.
Are there any other Disney actors or artists that you look up to?
I look up to Chelsea Kane. She’s one of the very first people I met in Hollywood and she’s genuinely a sweet girl. She’s funny and unapologetic with her sense of humor. I don’t think I’ve met one person who hates Chelsea. he is who she is and she is who she appears to be on Dancing with the Stars. I actually watched her in the audience as her guest on Tuesday night’s (April 19) live episode.
I love Tiffany Thorton. She’s from the South too and she’s very unapologetic, she’s sassy.
I like Nick Jonas and the way he’s been producing for artists. I feel like he’s OK with taking the backseat where the spotlight is concerned. He’s OK with not being the frontman but still writing and producing.
I also like actors like your Shia LaBeoufs who have had brilliant transitions form youth and comedic sitcom roles to serious film roles and action roles and I would love to do action movies.
Your 18th birthday is coming up soon, do you have any big plans?
I have a record store down the street of my house that I absolutely adore and I love to spend time in. I think it would be really fun to rent it out and fill it with a few friends and have a little jam session there. My 17th birthday was a bonfire and all of us just sitting on bean bag chairs outside under the stars and playing music. That was such a brilliant celebration and very low key.
No matter what I’ll be with my friends. I’m also looking to go to Las Vegas and staying for a few nights with a couple of friends and watching a show there and going with my mom and a couple women who are like moms to me. Kinds of a girls’ night thing for my birthday. I’ve never been to Las Vegas and it seems that there are a lot of things there that don’t interest me, but it also has some amazing art. And The Beatles show, I would love to see that.
