Saying “Goodbye to Hannah Montana” With Series Star, Jason Earles!
By Susan J. Yeager
In honor of the very last episode of “Hannah Montana” (now named “Hannah Montana Forever”) airing Sunday, January 16 at 7:00PM on the Disney Channel, we bring you a very extensive interview with series star Jason Earles who has spent the last five years playing “Jackson Stewart.” In this exclusive interview with Jason, conducted just a few weeks before shooting the last episode, the actor reveals everything from what he wished he could keep as a memento from the show to which group of fans has surprised him. He also dishes on his series co-stars including which one is “Dead to him” and reveals which practical joke on Miley literally backfired.
Read on to find out Jason’s thoughts on being a part of this iconic show and the saddest part of saying “Goodbye.”
It’s almost 3:00PM on a typical April Thursday in Hollywood, California and a private school has just let out for the afternoon. At least a couple hundred kids in uniform are streaming down the street, probably having no idea that just 200 feet away in a soundstage, the final season of “Hannah Montana” is coming close to completing its filming.
I’m met in Jason’s dressing room by the actor and his lovable and furry dog Andy. Jason is dressed in jeans, a Miami Dolphins T-Shirt and a backwards baseball cap. He looks very much like your brother’s best friend that you would have a major crush on and way less like a major TV star, even sitting in a dressing room. He’s friendly and calm and not nearly as hyper as his TV alter-ego. Our conversation begins with discussing how “Jackson” has changed over the years.
“Well, this year he has a girlfriend,” he begins. “That’s like the big change for this last season is he actually has a girlfriend that lasts longer than one episode. So there’s sort of this interesting element that’s been introduced into the story where I’m trying to make this thing work and keep Miley’s secret and not have it interfere with my relationship. That’s something we never really explored the first three years. So that’s probably the biggest way he’s changed.”
It’s the way Jackson hasn’t changed that resonates with Jason. “What I love about Jackson is he’s so dependable. He’s always been a goofball. It doesn’t matter if he was a Junior in High School or a Sophomore in college. You could sort of always count on him to roll into a scene and just be outrageous and goofy all the time.”
You would think with all of the physical comedy that he does on the show Jason would be worried about getting hurt. Luckily, nothing too serious has ever gone wrong. “The only time I’ve ever been hurt… I think it was the second or third season, there were these kids that climbed on me and I had to sort of fake fall to the ground. I really messed up my shoulder and it was not even like a very big fall. I had done way worse in other episodes. That one actually required a little physical therapy to get my shoulder right. But for the most part, I’ve done most of my own stunts over the course of the four years and I’ve been very lucky to not have gotten too banged up.”
“We have John Cena, the wrestler in an episode this season,” he continues. “It’s sort of this fantasy sequence. He picks me up over his head and slams me down on the couch. I think that’s the fun of my job, even though that’s the place where you could get hurt. I should be really scared but I’m actually loving the fact that John Cena is totally kicking my butt right now in this scene.”
You would also think that what Jackson has gone through on screen would be embarrassing to most actors. But Jason rolls with the punches. “I don’t ever really get too embarrassed. They make me do so much stuff. So for the most part, if it’s funny… I don’t really get embarrassed by stuff. I prefer not to wear unitards. They really seem to like to put me in dresses and unitards. So that’s not my favorite. I genuinely don’t get too embarrassed by the things they ask me to do. All things serving the funny, I’m willing to do it all.”
There was one embarrassing incident however, when a practical joke meant for Miley, ended up falling on the wrong victim. “This is sort of like an inappropriate story,” he says as his disclaimer. “It was something that I did, that didn’t have anything to do with the acting, but ultimately was embarrassing. I love to play this game with Miley. She’s not a willing participant, but I love to play this game that I call the ‘Gas and Go.’ It’s basically, since we’ve rehearsed it all week, we know where people are going to be in scenes at certain times. So if I can strategically place myself in an area that I know Miley has to get to… I will do a little ‘Elder Brother toot-el-edge action’ and leave a little present for her. And then know that she has to go to that space.”
“We were doing an episode with Mamaw’s car and we were getting her car back. I was in a place and I knew Miley was getting ready to come over to me, so I started the game,” he says sheepishly. “Little did I realize that Vicki Lawrence, who is an amazing actress that I really respect and I look up to, who plays our Grandma, she had to slide along the car and smell the new car smell and she slid right into the area that I had strategically left for Miley. That’s probably the only time that I’ve really truly been embarrassed. I laid a trap for Vicki Lawrence instead of Miley. That was pretty embarrassing!”
Then there are the things that have the potential to be embarrassing that totally work out. Like when I point out that my favorite episode of the series is the “He Could Be The One” episode that features Jackson and Rico recapping key plot points in various styles of song. It’s funny that I brought that up Jason points out. “We’re currently shooting another two-part, one hour, extravaganza sort of episode and we reprised the musical numbers. Now it’s Rico and Jackson and Jackson’s girlfriend. We’re doing these musical interludes. They’re all sort of really funny and different from the ones we did before.”
“We got a really strong fan response from those episodes which is funny because when they told us we were going to do it, Moises and I were like ‘You guys are crazy!’ We’re the two people who work for Disney that don’t have record deals, neither one of want to be musicians. We’re both almost tone deaf,” he jokes. “So when they were like ‘We’re going to build these musical numbers around you guys’ we sort of thought they were crazy. It ended up working out really well. The costumes and the music and the make-up that they came up with… it all really worked.”
Speaking of costumes, a lot of people wonder if actors get to keep the clothes that they wear on their show? “At the end of the season, sometimes they let you take a couple of things,” he explains. “Sometimes you have the option to buy a couple of things. At the end of each season I have grabbed stuff from my own wardrobe. I will usually get some board shorts for the beach, a couple pairs of jeans. They will usually buy you jeans and then alter them. And then [I take] like some sweatshirts and stuff. So I actually grab a couple of things yeah. I’ve taken some of ‘Oliver’s’ wardrobe, some of his sweatshirts. I know that Moises has already laid claim to some of my clothes from this year. We all sort of get in there and try to snatch our favorite things if we can.”
That’s not the only keepsake Jason would like to snatch. If he could take one thing from the set to remember it all by… what would he take? “I would love to take one of the Miley wigs,” he says with no hesitation of “Hannah’s” trademark blond wig. “There’s two of them that we use and they are really expensive… $5,000 a piece or something like that. They’re made with like real, individually woven, human hair. I mean they are really expensive. But I just think it would be really cool to have the ‘Hannah wig’ and there’s NO WAY I’ll get out of this place with it.”
He does, however, have some of the show’s memorable props at home. “In a previous year, she had the award, the Silver Booty,” he says about one of Hannah’s awards. “It was just one of our sort of made up awards and we had made up a whole bunch of Silver Booties to use in the episodes. So I snatched one of those in one of the previous years. I have that on my little mantle at home. We did this flashback of when Jackson first moved to Malibu from Tennessee and he was wearing his cowboy hat and his cowboy boots and his jeans. He had this big light-up belt buckle. I actually have the big light up belt buckle from that episode. I have a couple of things. I have… from the episode where I try to break the world record for longest consecutive pogo jumps, the Nackamora extreme. I have that pogo stick in my garage. And the giant Cheese Jerky sign from the Cheese Jerky episode.”
“I would love to get something from the set before it’s over,” the actor laments. He doesn’t have anything from Jackson’s notoriously filthy bedroom. “I always loved the devil poster of Hannah that he drew on. I always thought was pretty cool. So if I could get my hands on that… I maybe would snatch that too.”
Switching gears, we asked Jason to describe the people who play his TV family and friends and the answers seem very brotherly. “Miley is obnoxious and loud and funny and a great little sister,” he begins all the while sounding like a true older sibling. “She’s just one of the coolest people you could ever ask to hang out with. It’s so funny because I’ve known her for five years and I adore her and I know that she likes me but I still just secretly want her to REALLY like me. There’s just something about her that I’m just like ‘I really hope she likes me because she’s just really cool.’”
“Emily,” he ponders about the actress who plays “Lily,” “She is ALL business. She’s really, really focused. I think that she’s going to successfully pursue a film career once this show is over. She’s starting college and she is really excited about that. She’s really focused and fun when she’s not really focused,” he laughs. “Sometimes she’s just so in the moment and focused that I think she could maybe play and have a little more fun but just a really, really cool, cool girl.”
“MITCH!” he says loudly and feigning anger, “He’s dead to me!” he jokes. “He’s on his own show now. He jumped ship so I have officially cut ties with Mitchel Musso!” Jason laughs. “I’m actually really excited for him,” he continues earnestly. “He’ll do a handful of episodes this year. He did one earlier already and I think he’s in the two part finale, so it will be nice to see him again for that. I’m excited that he’s got the music stuff going on and his other show. I hope it doesn’t go to his head. I hope he stays grounded and keeps a good sense of perspective and has fun,” he says, again sounding like the older brother of the group. “Moises… I love that kid! I already told him that GOD FORBID, something tragic happen to his parents that I wanted to adopt him and his brother,” he jokes. “The only stipulation is… he has to call me Poppy! That’s it! But other than that… I would love to raise him as if he was my own.” Seriously, Jason continues. “I just think he’s really funny. As an actor, if you watch him from early on in the first season to now… I think he’s grown as an actor by leaps and bounds. I think he’s also really funny. I think he’s going to be a great little character actor.”
“Billy Ray, he is like the mellowest guy ever!” Jason says of his on-screen Dad. “Sometimes I can’t tell if he is awake or if he is sleeping. As we’re getting closer to the end of it, I think he’s just riding the wave you know, into the end and just sort of hanging out. A real nice guy. Sort of sneaky funny. I think he’s funnier than he thinks he is! I wish he would trust himself a little more that way because he’s exceptionally charming when he’s on camera and he’s naturally funny. We’ve done a hundred episodes and I think he still thinks he’s not funny and he is!”
So if this group got back together for a “Hannah Montana” reunion… say ten years from now… how does he see Jackson? “I think he will probably still be living at home. He will probably be independently wealthy. He will have stumbled upon something that makes him very rich and he will still live in his parent’s basement. I firmly believe that. He’ll be married to a super model. He’ll have no kids. He’ll be wealthy but nobody will know why he’s wealthy. That’s Jackson.”
One of the things that Jason is hoping he won’t have to miss is the fans. He’s hoping the loyal audience of viewers will keep up with him and support his other projects. Though he admits, the adoration took a little getting used to. “This show has given me more opportunities then I would have ever imagined. I assumed that there’d be some six to eleven year old kids that would watch the show and then it would just be on for two or three years and disappear and that would be the end of it. To see what’s become globally. I mean it’s on in like 140 or something like that countries around the world. It’s just been really amazing to see the response with the fan mail and being out in public and having people come up. Like go to Disneyland and you’ll have people from Argentina that are on vacation come up and say ‘We watch you in Argentina.’ It’s just been really humbling that way to see what the response has been.”
“One of my favorite stories is… I was doing this charity thing where they auctioned me off to get to hang out with me and go bowling and mini-golf for the afternoon. This family won and I went to this girl’s school to pick her up. They got a limo and the whole thing. I was waiting in the car and they brought her out. She got in the car and said ‘Hi my name is…’ and then just passed out. She was just so excited that she just passed out right there. I was scared and I didn’t know what to do. Then she came back to and it was all cool. But just the fact that she was that excited… I was a little surprised that anybody would be that excited to meet me.”
“I’ll go do some personal appearances sometimes. You sort of expect the people that will come out to that are like the ten year old girls and their Moms. I’ve been amazed at how many times I’ll get like four or five 17, 18, 19, 20 year old dudes in a group that come up and watch the show because they think Jackson’s funny and their genuinely excited to meet me and say ‘Hey!’ It’s not like their being jerks or anything and trying to make fun of me… they have been watching the show since they were like 14, 15, years old and are actually excited about it. It’s not something that you would think. You would think that it’s all these tween girls. The demographic has actually really spread in the last couple of years as far as who watches the show which has been very fun!”
If you bump into Jason out shopping or at the movie theater or something, just be nice and say “Hello.” Freaking out and screaming might not get you anywhere. “People approach me all sorts of different ways. Ultimately, they’re all fine. It’s better not to be really obnoxious and yell ‘JACKSON!’ If you want to come up and take a picture, just come up and say ‘Hey, I watch the show… would it be cool if we got a picture?’ And I will take a picture with you every time. If you want me to sign a little autograph… I am totally cool with that. It’s usually like if you’re nice to me, and treat me like a person, then I will go out of my way to do whatever you want. If you’re sort of obnoxious, I may pretend like I didn’t hear you,” he says honestly.
“These fans that we develop while we’re here,” he says wistfully, “they’re the sort of fans that will be with you for your whole life. They will grow up with you and they will follow you when you’re an adult and you’re doing your adult career.”
Looking back on the whole “Hannah” experience, what will Jason view as the pros and cons? “If you’re really worried about your career, like maybe you would say a con would be you’re afraid of being typecast. Like nobody will ever see you as anything other than what you’re playing on the show. I’m not really too worried about that. I figure if you’re being type cast, at least you’re being cast. That’s like half the battle. I think if you consistently show up and do good work and you’re funny and easy to work with, you’ll keep being cast and eventually you get to play all the roles that you want.”
“I think the pros are people know you from the show. There’s an awareness that like for me was not there before. Miley had a famous Dad. She probably comes with a certain amount of awareness even if there was no ‘Hannah Montana.’ I have no friends or family in the business so I’m doing this all on my own. This show has sort of been the springboard to where I’ll go to some auditions now and the casting director will be like, ‘Well, we brought you in because I have a daughter and she loves the show and we watch it together. We really like you and I just wanted to get a chance to bring you in and meet you.’ And that’s something that never would have happened if it hadn’t been for the show.”
“For me, the positives WAY overwhelm anything negative that might potentially come out of something like this,” he continues. “There’s more pressure on Miley to break out of the ‘Hannah Montana’ thing than there is for any of the supporting characters on the show. I think she’s doing a good job of that. Between ‘The Last Song,’ and she’s got other movies lined up and she’s got the music stuff that she does. She’s been very clear about having Hannah Montana music and Miley Cyrus music. I think she will do a really good job of remembering and loving this but being able to go on and be herself once it’s over."
It’s hard to imagine life without working on “Hannah” but Jason was preparing for the final days. When asked what he was going to miss the most, his voice takes on an uncharacteristic sad tone. “The people,” he says quietly. “Definitely the people! Especially the last two seasons, I feel like I’ve really gotten to know people better, whether it’s our A.D’s or the guys on the crew, our camera guys, the writers. This is the first year that I’ve spent time up in the writer’s room while they’re actually breaking stories and writing episodes. It’s been very cool of them to let me into their world that way and see what’s going on. My fellow cast members. We’ve been very lucky to keep basically the same group together for the last five years. You can’t help but feel like they’re your family and they’ll sort of always be an important part of this chapter of your life. I will miss seeing these people every day.”
Though no experience will be quite like the “Hannah” one, Jason is moving forward and is already set to star on a new Disney XD series tentatively called “Wasabi Warriors” that should begin airing sometime this year. The show centers on a group of misfit teenagers that wind up hanging out at a martial arts studio. Keep an eye out for the series and its crazy cast.
Though we know him best as “Jackson Stewart” and that character will always have a place in our hearts, this was just one chapter of actor Jason Earles’ life. It’s exciting to watch what comes next. Goodbye “Stewart” family. Thank you for making the last four years, a little brighter!
More Random Thoughts From Jason:
What would you be doing if you weren’t acting?
I would probably go to college and get my Master’s in something theater related and try to teach at a little liberal arts college. I think that would be a pretty cool deal. I would totally cheat though, I probably wouldn’t be a scientist or something like that. I would probably stay related to the arts. I sort of thought that I wanted to be a teacher but not like necessarily an elementary school teacher. I think if I was going to do it, I’d want to be a college professor. Do you watch yourself on TV? I try not to. Every once in a while I’ll catch an episode, if I haven’t seen it before, I will watch it to see how it was edited and what stuff made the cut, what didn’t and which takes they used… stuff like that. I would say that there’s probably half a dozen or maybe ten episodes out of the eighty or ninety we’ve done so far that I REALLY like. Not so much because of me… either I really like the story or I like someone’s else’s certain jokes that they do. If they’re on, I will at least watch at least part of the episode. But it’s sort of like when you record your own voice and listen to it back. There is just something really weird about it. I always think I sound weird and I look weird. I try to figure out why I did the things I did. Because I’m so obnoxious or [have such] big energy when I’m Jackson. I’m a lot calmer in real life. So it always just seems outrageous to me when I’m watching myself. I try to figure out where all that stuff comes from. I do a little bit, but not as much as maybe you would think.
What’s it like being part of the Disney Channel Family?
The Disney Channel is a really interesting thing because it is big business. It is a giant machine. For me, my favorite part of it is the family element. There’s a handful of people that I work with all the time at Disney like the talent coordination, and the people that they use to shoot our promos. I’ve been around them for the last five years. I’ve met some of their kids. We’ve gone on work vacation together. These are people that I really, really like and consider extended family like the show is extended family. It’s really interesting because I have these very strong personal relationships, I feel like, at the Disney Channel but there’s no masking the fact that it’s business.
Sometimes when you’re doing the business stuff, it doesn’t jive with the personal relationships. It can be sort of challenging to wrap your brain around that. But you have to otherwise you’ll go crazy.
The Disney Channel itself is a great place, especially if you’re starting out, because they really nurture your career and they use you in a lot of different ways, whether it’s a Disney Channel Original movie if you’re on one of their series or having you guest star on other series. If you have musical interest, hooking you up with Hollywood Records and doing the music side.
These opportunities are sort of limitless. When they have people that they know and they like, they really do try to use them and keep them working. There’s something great about that. So it’s two sort of separate things in my brain. There’s the corporation side of it and then there’s the people. I probably like the people better than the corporation side but I don’t have a problem with either. They’ve been very, very, good to me.