Disney Channel Presents "Avalon High"
It’s the Drama That Legends Are Made Of! Disney Channel’s Original Movie “Avalon High” Premieres November 12! Two of the Movie’s Stars Take Over Radio Disney That Day Too! We Talk To Molly Quinn and Gregg Sulkin First!
By: Susan J. Yeager
Allie Pennington (played by “Life Unexpected’s Britt Robertson) is thrilled when her parents enroll her at Avalon High and tell her that she can be a student there until she graduates. Having been moved around with her parents who are traveling professors, staying in one place for a while is just fine with the high school student who is anxious to make real friends and join teams.
Soon Allie starts to discover that things (and people) aren’t exactly what they seem. It all begins to come into focus for Allie when she begins writing a paper in History class about King Arthur’s legacy. There is an ancient legend that Arthur and his court will be reincarnated during a time when he is needed most to bring a new age of enlightenment to the world. Allie begins to think that her classmates just might be the reincarnations. If these students are indeed part of the Knights of the Round Table… just who is who and what is their end game? Tune in to the Disney Channel’s world premiere of “Avalon High” on Friday, November 12 at 8:00PM (EST/PT) to find out.
In the meantime, you can watch the trailer for the movie here:
We recently talked to Molly Quinn who stars as “Jen” and Gregg Sulkin (who plays “Will Wagner”). The two actors will join the Radio Disney crew for a “Take Over” on Friday afternoon. Be sure to tune into that! Find out more about Molly and what she had to say about the movie below. Stop back by on Thursday to see more on Gregg!
Meet Molly
Molly Quinn is a Texas native who currently stars as “Alexis Castle” in ABC’s hit crime drama “Castle.” Having been bit by the acting bug at the very young age of 6, the talented seventeen year old has already worked with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars like Jim Carrey and John C. Reilly. She recently snuck away from the “Castle” set long enough to play “Jen” in “Avalon High.” The sweet and friendly actress made time to talk with us recently and gave us the scoop on everything from who was the prankster on the set of “Avalon High” to what her TV Dad is pressuring her to do this year. Meet Molly!
“I think I realized I wanted to be an actress when I was 6 years old,” she begins when asked about her start in show business. “I was auditioning for our local production of the ‘Nutcracker.’ I wasn’t exactly… let’s say… ‘proud’ of my dancing. So when they auditioned for the speaking part I was like ‘Okay, I want to be in this. I know out of 200 girls, I may not get the dancing but I may be able to get the speaking part.’ The director, who was Martin Beck, had been a writer/director on the east coast and he was in Texarkana. He booked me the part. After that, he asked my parents if he could teach me acting lessons. And they were like, ‘Sure. Why not? What will it hurt?’ Wow! He just really fostered that love of creating in me and it’s never gone away. He would let me do anything I wanted. If I wanted to be a guy, if I wanted to be a vampire, if I wanted to be a frog he just let me play. I had so much fun expressing myself that way.”
After receiving more training, Molly and her family decided to make the move to California so Molly could be where a lot of the acting action begins. It didn’t take long for her to start working. “The first thing I booked coming out to California was ‘Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox Story. I had one line and it was ‘He walks so hard.’” She laughs. “I still don’t know what that means! But it was a great time. I got to meet John C. Reilly. It just made me love acting even more! Then I did a Compound W commercial. Then I did ‘A Christmas Carol’ with Robert Zemeckis. That was phenomenal! I had to use a British accent for that. I’d go in [to audition] with the British accent. When I finally got the call back and I was with Robert Zemeckis, he was like ‘So, Molly, how long have you been living here?’ And I was like, ‘Well, what do you mean?’ And he was like, ‘Well, you’re from England right?’ And I’m like ‘No, I’m from Texarkana, Texas.’ It was great. I got to work with Jim Carrey and made really great friends with him.”
Working on “A Christmas Carol” brought another unexpected perk for Molly. “I think the coolest thing was… I was working with Robin Wright Penn and Cary Elwes at the time of the anniversary of ‘The Princess Bride,’” she explains. “So they came in on that day and gave everyone signed copies of it. On mine, Cary Elwes signed ‘As you wish!’ I geeked out over it!” she says excitedly.
Molly is equally as excited about starring in the new Disney Channel original movie “Avalon High.” “What made me want to do Avalon High and ‘Jen’ specifically was that she’s really conflicted and she’s really a sweet character and very different from ‘Alexis,’” she explains about deciding to take this role. “She doesn’t have that type of support group. She’s having to deal with a lot of things on her own. Like ‘Alexis’ has her father there and she has her grandmother there. She has people to bounce things off of even though she is the adult in the relationship. It was fun playing someone that has to seem all bubbly and seem so perky and keep up those people skills and actually on the inside she is dealing with a lot more than people know,” she says.
“I would describe ‘Avalon High’ as… you don’t know who anyone is,” she states when asked to tell us about the movie. “You start off the movie and you start figuring out that we are reincarnations from King Arthur legends. You think you have us pigeon-holed into who we are. But even at the end of the movie when certain things are revealed, you still don’t really know who is who. You have to think. It’s a very psychological movie and that’s what I really liked about it. It was like a new Disney. Disney is always growing and that’s what I love about Disney!”
Molly loves the whole movie but one scene does stand out for her. “I think my favorite scene from the movie is when Brittany Robertson, who I have always wanted to work with ever since I saw ‘Dan in Real Life,’ her character, Allie Pennington, confronts Jen over one of her secrets. So she’s the first person that really sees through Jen and kind of starts digging deeper than Jen’s comfortable with and Jen has to deal with that. It’s interesting seeing the way that she does.”
Another co-worker made a big impression on Molly. “Working with Steve Valentine who plays ‘Mr. Moore,’ I really learned the benefits of improv. That was really great because I stick to scripts. That’s what I do. I like to build my back story and then stick to the director’s lines. Because on ‘Castle’ we have a lot of dialogue and really have to get it there and get the beats. But working with this and seeing Steve Valentine, he’s done so many things. He’s on ‘I’m in the Band’ right now on Disney XD… just how funny he was, how off the cuff funny. That’s what I want to learn and I’m trying to apply that in my own acting right now.”
“Gregg Sulkin plays so many pranks,” Molly confesses about things getting crazy on set. “I got pranked with these things he calls ‘bangers’ which he would put it in like a water bottle and when you picked the water bottle up it would explode. He was such a joker. So it was really hard getting our work done on set but it was a lot of fun.”
Being a part of the Disney legacy is something Molly does not take for granted. “I felt very honored,” she says of working on a Disney Channel project. “It was really great that ‘Castle’ worked around ‘Avalon High’ and was able to work my dates out. They always say that people don’t work out projects for kids but they really do, especially [for] Disney. I think it’s really great that they promote wholesome programming.”
Fans who enjoy seeing Molly on “Avalon High” can look for her on Monday nights on ABC at 10:00PM on “Castle.” They can also look for her on Facebook. “I have a Facebook fan site. It’s MollyCQuinnOfficialFanSite. I love talking to my fans on there! They’re from all over the world. And getting to know about their lives. Because that’s what I love about acting is becoming different characters.”
Soon, thanks to her TV Dad, she will be joining the millions of people who have discovered the joy of Twitter. “By the end of this year, I will be starting a Twitter because Nathan has been on me about it for about a year. So I am finally going to succumb and do the twitter thing. So be watching out for that!”
She’s smart, friendly, sweet and talented. Yes, Molly Quinn is definitely one of Hollywood’s bright young stars that everyone should be watching!
Meet Gregg
Gregg Sulkin is a familiar face to Disney Channel fans, thanks to his reoccurring role as “Alex Russo’s” boyfriend “Mason Greybeck” on “Wizards of Waverly Place.” The 18 year-old actor moved to Los Angeles from London, England last year to play “Mason” and audition for other acting projects. He’s been keeping busy ever since and is excited about playing “Will Wagner” in “Avalon High.”
We talked with Gregg about everything from how Mother really does know best to experiencing American sporting events for the first time. Oh yeah, we also got some scoop on the Disney Channel event that we’ve all been waiting for… a little movie called “Avalon High!”
Gregg was a typical teenager who went to school and played soccer very well when his Mom’s notice of an advertisement in the paper ended up changing his life forever. “When I did my first job, I was 13 at the time and I never wanted to be an actor. It was my friend’s birthday and my Mom saw this advert in a newspaper. She was like ‘Go!’ And I was like ‘Mom, I don’t really want to. It’s my friend Annabelle’s birthday. All my friend’s are going over there.’ Then she was like, ‘Just do it! Trust me. You don’t have to go to another audition. I just want you to go to this audition.’ So I went to my first audition and I ended up getting the lead role in a movie called Sixty-Six, which was a big release in England and a limited release over here. Helena Bonham Carter played my Mom and Eddie Marsan played by Dad. Ever since then, I kind of realized how much fun it was working with amazing people and how much fun the industry could be. So I kind of put all my effort in to it and decided to stick with it and go full blast.”
He ended up landing a role on the Disney Channel in England which in turn, helped to get him noticed for a role here in the states. “I did some stuff in England for them,” he says of becoming part of the DC family. “I did a show called ‘As the Bell Rings.’ We did a British version of it in England. And then I jumped ‘over the pond’ as people like to call it and I started working on the show ‘Wizards of Waverly Place.’ I play Selena Gomez’s on-screen boyfriend. That was awesome, coming and working on such a big and well written show. [It] has great writers and great producers behind it. It was just a kind of dream to come to America and work on one of their biggest shows.”
Then came the opportunity to play “Will Wagner” in “Avalon High.” “It’s more edgy in a way,” he says of why he was anxious to land this role. “I definitely feel that this could go to the theaters. I saw it the other day and the movie really is epic. Hopefully, if it does well and the kids love it, then we’ll be doing another one I hope!”
Gregg sets up the story by saying “It’s basically a girl called Allie Pennington who moves to a new town. She goes to a new school and the finds out that her classmates are reincarnations of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table kind of story. I don’t want to give too much away on who is who because there are a lot of twists in the movie. But each character is a reincarnation of King Arthur and his court.”
“The movie has everything in it,” he continues. “It has sport. It has everything that kids and adults could want in a movie. It appeals to everybody. Even adults know the King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table story. There are some funny jokes in there that the adults are going to laugh at. The kids are going to love it. It’s just an awesome experience and I embraced every second of it.”
See a clip of Gregg in action here:
The actor didn’t have any trouble getting into character because he could relate to “Will’s” journey though they did have some differences. “Well, I am definitely not American!” he says sarcastically in his cute English accent. “And I have never played American football before… so that was definitely interesting and a lot of fun.”
“I mean, I can relate to him regarding the pressures and stuff,” he continues seriously. “I’ve always had to deal with kind of pressure in my life. Not as much as him because in school, actually in a way I could because when I played soccer for my school in England, I’m not being big-headed, but I was probably the most gifted player in the school. So I was kind of the guy that everybody looked up too. If we were losing, it was kind of down to me to make sure we won the game. So I know about pressures regarding sports and pressures from home. To come to America on my own I guess, I kind of owe a lot then to my family for believing in me. So I can relate to a few pressures from home. Having supportive parents and feeling like you owe it down to yourself but also owe it down to them to succeed. So I can relate to him in that way.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend, so I can’t relate to him in that way,” he says when thinking about the differences. “It was awesome playing ‘Will’ because he’s a really nice guy but he’s definitely got some edge to him. You definitely see some tempers flared in the movie. It was nice to play a character with so many different layers and so many different dimensions. It was fun just to play a character with a lot of edge.”
When he’s not working, Gregg is a dedicated soccer fan as evident by the time he gets up to watch the games. “[I] wake up at five am to watch the Arsenal. Arsenal is a soccer team in England who I’m like obsessed with. They’re like my childhood home. But because of the time difference, I’m always up at like 5 or 6 am. I never miss a game! I’m like the biggest fan ever! Normally, I wake up and then go back to sleep.”
He’s also starting to try to figure out the rules and customs of other American sports. “[I] hang out with friends, go see a lot of movies,” he continues about what takes up his free time. “I started going to ice hockey games recently. My friend David is a big fan of the L.A. Kings. I go with him the whole time. It’s awesome! ‘Go Kings Go’ is the chant that they sing. The Kings are doing amazing this season; they’re top of the standing. Last year, I went to my first ever game with David. L.A. Kings won 8 to 3 against Vancouver Canucks. It was insane! Someone scored a hat trick, and people started taking their hats off and throwing them on the rink. I honestly was in hysterics. I thought it was the funniest moment of my life. I’ll never forget it. Then I realized… hat trick… people take their hats off. I’m still kind of getting used to the rules and stuff.” Wait until he goes to a game where they throw an Octopus onto the rink. We’re still trying to figure that one out ourselves.
Gregg took some time recently to be a part of a Radio Disney Takeover. “It’s great!” he gushes about having the chance to take calls from DC fans. “We put a lot of effort and hard work into making the movie as good as possible. We and Disney make these movies to please kids and their families. So it’s nice when we’re excited about it and we see a kind of response from the audience and fans that they’re excited to see it too! It was my first time taking over Radio Disney and it was FUN! I just like to muck around and have fun. It was like being back in school on a playground.”
Things don’t appear to be slowing down for the busy actor any time soon. “I’m opening up a Disney Store in New York, which will be fun,” he tells us of what’s up next for him. “Then I’m going straight from New York to Washington State to shoot a movie. [I’ll be] carrying on working on the fourth season of Wizards, which I go back in January, I think, cause we’ve pushed some episodes back so I can go do the movie. I’m excited!” he exclaims about the work he’s getting to do.
Fans can keep up with Gregg via his Twitter account so they don’t miss one second of his blossoming career. “I’ve turned a bit Hollywood and done the Twitter thing,” he laughs. “That’s as Hollywood as I’m going to turn. It’s Gregg_Sulkin. It’s fun! I don’t have a Facebook and I don’t have a Myspace so it’s the only way I can have contact with the world I guess. I love it! You can interact with all your fans and interact with your friends. I think it’s awesome.”
Though he doesn’t really set goals for himself, the actor does see himself moving behind the camera one day. “I like to work hard, concentrate and take things seriously regarding work and then also be a teenager. I’m still only 18. I kind of missed a bit of my childhood not going to college and coming out here. So I want to stay young and have fun and do teenage things. I want to start writing. For the long-term future, I definitely want to start producing and writing and directing and stuff like that. So in a few years hopefully, I’ll be doing that!”
By staying in front of the camera and working on quality projects like “Avalon High” and “Wizards” Gregg is off to a good start on learning what it takes to make his future aspirations a reality. Whether he is in front of the camera or behind it, he is already building a loyal fan base who will be watching his every move.
For more on “Avalon High” visit:
The Disney Channel Avalon High Page
Check out a clip from the movie here: