By Kenn Gold and Shaun Daily
Listen to Robbie’s Interview (in the 2nd hour)
Robbie Amell can currently be seen on Nickelodeon’s new show True Jackson VP where he plays Jimmy, love interest to the main character True (Keke Palmer) who gets a job as Vice President of the Youth Apparel department of a fashion company called Mad Style. The show airs Saturday’s at 8:30 ET/PT on Nickelodeon. Robbie also recently finished filming Scooby Doo: The Beginning, playing the lead role of “Fred” in the original TV movie to air in the summer of 2009 on Cartoon Network.
Born in Toronto, Ontario Robbie’s journey to Hollywood wasn’t like most young actors. While his mother had secured a commercial and print agent for him at the age of six, Robbie concentrated his efforts on sports, becoming one of the best hockey players in his high school with thoughts of going pro. Then everything changed. Called back to play the role of Eugene Levy and Carmen Electra’s son, Daniel, in the motion picture Cheaper By the Dozen 2, he was such a good fit for the part that his role ballooned up significantly. And thus he was bitten by the acting bug, moving to Los Angeles two years later, after graduating from high school.
Robbie past motion credits includes The Alyson Stoner Project, the horror thriller Left for Dead and
America Pie Presents: Beta House. His TV Credits include an extended episode recurring role on the critically acclaimed show, Life With Derek, (which was his first ever TV audition), playing Max, the boyfriend of the show’s female lead Casey (Ashley Leggat) He also had /a part in The CW’s Runaway, and may be most widely known for the lead role in the ABC original TV movie. Picture This opposite Ashley Tisdale.
Robbie recently came onto the TV Talk radio show to discuss his role on True Jackson VP and his past roles, as well as what he wants for the future.
Let’s talk about True Jackson. Can you talk about the show and your character there?
True Jackson is a lot of fun to shoot. It’s a live audience taping every Friday. It’s the first live audience gig I’ve gotten to do besides theatre. It’s so much fun just to rehearse all week and put it all together in front of about 150 kids. The show is about a little girl, Kiki Palmer, who plays True Jackson. She becomes Vice President of a huge fashion label in
New York. She’s selling sandwiches as a summer job, and she’s made her own adjustments to clothes from Mad Style, which is the fashion label. And the owner and president sees her in them and asks her about them, then hires her on the spot. So she and her two best friends kind of live out their daily lives and deal with all the problems. I play Jimmy, the mail boy, who is also the nephew to Max, the CEO and President of the company. So even though we’re family, I get stuck in the mail room and somebody he meets on the corner gets put in as vice-president. My deal is that I’m a love interest to True Jackson, so there’s a little something there. Also, I just give her a little bit of advice on how things at the office, and keep her from quitting when she’s getting down.
Are you filming in LA, or Vancouver, or where?
We’re shooting in LA at
Paramount. It’s a great studio and I couldn’t be happier over there. I’m from
Toronto originally so living in LA and being able to shoot here is definitely nicer than going back to the cold.
It’s great that True Jackson is shot in front of a live audience. Is it different being on there and knowing there are so many people watching you live?
Being able to do it in front of the kids is just so different. It’s a lot more fun because you can react off of their laughter and reactions. You can just try something new every couple of takes, because even though we are doing it live in front of an audience, we’re still shooting it so we have to do four or five takes per shot. You get to try different things, and just feeding off their laughter is so much fun.
Everyone seems to get along so well on the show, how is the chemistry off the set?
Working together all week, we became really close, really fast. From the table read on Monday, to the live taping on Friday, we’re just rehearsing and doing the same things amongst ourselves the whole time. With spending that much time together we just got really close, really fast. Right when the pilot came out, the chemistry was fantastic. And the directors we’ve got have been great. Gary Halvorson, who works on Two and a Half Men, and who directed a bunch of Friends episodes makes the comedy and timing a lot easier.
Is it harder to concentrate as an actor when you are filming in front of a crowd? I know you said you feed off of their energy, but does that make it harder at all to hit your cues?
I wouldn’t say it’s harder, but it’s definitely more fun when you do screw up a line. The whole audience will laugh and go along with it, then you have to take it back. The only time that it really created sort of a problem for me was when True and I kissed; the whole audience gave us a “Whooooo”. I grew up watching Fresh Prince of Bell-Air, so I remember Will Smith having those scenes and the whole crowd getting into it. So I had the biggest smile on my face after the kiss and started laughing when I had to do it over again. I took theatre throughout high school, and it’s definitely right in the middle between theatre and TV. You have to be a little bit bigger, but you have to keep it down enough for when it’s airing on television. You want to give the crowd a show, but you also don’t want to be over the top when you are watching it on television.
You’re bio says you’re a big fan of Sci Fi, and we’ve had Ashley Leggat and John Ralston from Life With Derek on the show. I have to ask, did you watch Flash Gordon at all, and do you have an opinion about John’s portrayal of Ming the Merciless? He was such a great guy on Derek, and the meanest guy in the universe on Flash.
I actually didn’t see it, but I have heard good things and I’d like to check it out. But I haven’t seen the show.
So how was it working on Life With Derek? Your bio says that was your first audition for TV?
Life With Derek was my first TV audition and I went in and went with it. I booked the role and shot one episode, which I believe was the last episode of Season 2. So they went on hiatus, so I didn’t know if I was going back. Then they came back to shooting and I ended up shooting another 17 episodes. I couldn’t have asked for a better start to my career. It was a lot of fun to work with the cast, and Disney was perfect to kind of learn the ropes and figure out what works and doesn’t work on TV.
Is that show done now, or is there a chance you might go back?
I’ve finished on that show. There’s always a chance I’d go back if I was home in Toronto visiting family or shooting something else there. If they wanted to bring me into an episode, I’d be more than happy to do it. Everyone there was great in production and the cast was a lot of fun. It was definitely a great time. There are definitely different aspects between that and a live audience, but at the same time it was a lot of fun.
How did you get the acting bug? How did you get into acting?
I was always very comfortable in front of a camera, so my mom put my sister and I both into commercials and print work when we were young, just with a modeling agent. Then when Cheaper By The Dozen 2 was coming to
Toronto or going to be shooting in
Toronto, they were casting some roles from modeling agents because they didn’t have a lot of lines. It was more that they needed the same look as other family members. I played Eugene Levy and Carmen Electra’s son. So I went in and they had me read some of the sides from the movie that weren’t from my character. It went really well and I got a call the next day from my agent asking if I’d heard the good news. I thought maybe I had a call back but she said I was booked and I was going to be shooting for 3 months, so I had to cancel my summer job. After just a few days on set I was struck. I was like, “This is exactly what I want to do, and I’m having way too much fun here. If this is work, why do anything else?”
So talking about Cheaper By The Dozen 2, and you mention you are a huge hero and super hero fan, you got to work with Tom Welling. Are you a fan of Smallvile fan at all?
I’m a huge superhero fanatic. I’m a fan of Batman, the Flash, Green Lantern; I’m a superhero freak. But I’ve never gotten into Smallville. I don’t know why, I’ve seen a couple of episodes and I liked it, but I always felt like I had to start at the beginning to get into it, so I’ve never picked up season 1 or 2 and started through it. If I do, I’m going to be stuck in my house for like three weeks going through eight or nine seasons of Smallville. But I’ve always been obsessed with superheroes. I’ve been Batman three or four times for Halloween, one of which was last year, so I’m not exactly growing out of my superhero phase.
You’d be perfect to play Nightwing on the CW if they ever get their act together with a Robin series. How about that?
Oh, I’d do that in a second. My absolute perfect career would be to get famous enough or well known enough to take over the Batman franchise, or The Flash, or Green Lantern…any of my favorite superheroes. I’ve never been a huge superman fan. I like him, but he just never struck me as the one to go with. Batman though, especially after Dark Knight, would be ideal.
One of the other projects that you have coming up is Scooby Doo, The Beginning. That’s a pretty cool adventure. Are you still filming that, or getting ready to, or what?
We shot in Vancouver for seven weeks in late July to the beginning of September. Being able to play a character that is almost 40 years old is just unbelievable. There have been so many takes on him in cartoons and even in live action. There was so much research to look at, but being able to play Fred Jones at an age where you’ve never seen him was just absolutely awesome.
Did they make you dye your hair? Did you have to be blond for this?
Well, I hope it doesn’t upset too many people, but I’m a brown haired Fred.
Freddie Prince Jr. always kind of disturbed me as a blonde in the movies.
Oh, the wig was terrible, or if they dyed it. Whatever. It just wasn’t for me. So that was the whole discussion. I was told they were going to dye my hair, and when I got to Vancouver, Brian Levant, the director just made an executive decision that, “No, we’re not doing it!” I have a friend who had to dye his hair and he has very dark features like me. He said it was just the worst experience, because they kept pointing at his eyebrows and his hair and the color was off. He was just so self conscious the whole shoot and didn’t want to be in front of the camera.
So this is the start of the Scooby Gang?
It is. It takes place when we’re in high school, and it’s about how we first meet. We’re not friends at all in the beginning. I’m the jock, Shaggy is kind of a loner on his own, Daphne is the theatre girl, and Velma is kind of a nerd. We all get put in detention because the principal thinks we crashed the school bus, so we all get put into detention and it’s about how we solve our first mystery. If all goes according to plan, two more movies will be following that one. It was originally supposed to be a backdoor pilot, then they changed it to a three picture deal, and I believe they are trying to do the same thing High School Musical did, where the first two would be straight to DVD with television premieres, then the third one would have a lot more money put into it, and go for a theatrical release. But it was so much fun. I got to fight a ghost, which doesn’t sound cool, and you think it would be CGI, but they had a guy in a costume wearing football gear. But since he was wearing the gear, I got to really slug him and it was fun.
How do you choose these roles when they come up? Do you look for a certain genre, or how do you decide what roles to take and what ones to turn down?
I’m not at a point to turn down too many roles, but after doing a full series on Disney, and now being on a Nickelodeon show that I’m not under contract for and can come and go whenever they need me, I’m not looking to lock myself into a Disney or Nickelodeon series for the next six years. I don’t want to be doing Disney when I’m 26, but with being said, I’m more than happy to do guest stars and recurring roles on those shows, where I have the freedom to move on if something more appealing comes along, or something a little bigger. I’d love to do something action right now. After shooting Scooby Doo and having a taste of it, I’m just dying to do a huge action movie.
You’ve done a lot of different genres. What would be your perfect role?
I’ve got out for a couple of different things lately that really appeal to me. Since I’m not going to college right now, I’d love to shoot something around college life. I’d love to have some sports involved in that, maybe a football show- something along the lines of Friday Night Lights. That would be a great project, or a movie like Varsity Blues. Other than that, it always comes back to superheroes. I keep reading about The Flash, and that they are going to start it when he is very young, like Wally West as a teenager like they did with Spiderman. I believe they started with his senior year in high school. I know they’ve green lit Green Lantern to come out before the Flash. Playing a superhero is just a dream, and I know I sound like a broken record. Superhero movies have come so far with the amount of money they are putting into them, and the quality of the movies. It’s unbelievable and I can’t imagine anything that would be more fun.
Let’s talk about Green Lantern, which Green Lantern is yours? Are we talking Kyle Rayner, Hal Jordan, or what?
I don’t really have a favorite. I just love the idea that the ring is the most powerful thing in the universe. And it’s based on the emotion that you have towards the problem, which is how powerful the ring becomes. I think that would be an unbelievable movie. I do know that they’ve talked about Ryan Gosling playing Green Lantern, which I think would be amazing casting. He’s a great actor and he’d do an unbelievable job as a superhero.
Now your bio mentions your pet snake, Wally West. Why Wally West rather than Barry Allen?
Because Wally West is the younger one, and if The Flash were to be a possibility, I’m hoping it would be Wally West, and not when I’m 35 playing Barry Allen.
Do you get recognized yet, when you go out on the street?
I’m just starting to really experience that. My gym is on Hollywood Blvd, right next to the Kodak center. And I’ll be walking up there and an occasional group of 14 or 15 year old girls will sometimes get me in trouble. But I’m not at the Zach Efron or Leonardo DiCaprio when he was young, level of stardom. I’m pretty happy where I am.
Do you have any worries that you might get typecast with all of these projects aimed at younger audiences?
Right now, being 20 and still looking young, I’m happy doing the younger stuff. But a lot of the younger audience crosses over into the stuff I’d like to be doing, the superhero movies for one. I had a part in American Pie, the most recent one. The crossover of fans from Life With Derek to American Pie was surprisingly similar. It was a much younger demographic for an American Pie movie than I thought there would be. So I’m not too worried about being typecast. I don’t think you’ll see me doing a musical anytime soon. But other than that, I’m OK.
You’ve done stuff in Toronto, Vancouver, and LA. How would you compare the three scenes?
Vancouver is right in the middle. Toronto is the land of extremes. Weather wise, it’s hot as hell in the summer and just freezing cold in the winter. LA is perfect all year round, and Vancouver is right in the middle. As far as night life, you’ve got amazing night life in Toronto and LA, but not too much going on in Vancouver. Or at least I didn’t experience too much when I was there. As far as people go, having grown up in Toronto I’ve seen a lot worse things there than I have in LA. People are pretty nice here, and I haven’t dealt with any of the darker sides of LA. But I can’t see myself moving from Los Angeles. The weather alone would keep me, knowing that I’m going to have sun 365 days a year. I’m over the snow, and don’t even want to go back for Christmas.
You’re not caught up in the Hollywood scene though yet are you?
No, I’ll pick my place and times to go out. I love to go to premieres and stuff like that, but going out in LA is just a hassle. Every club is so packed and busy, plus I’m not even old enough to drink.
Do you want to do a TV series at some point?
I would love to do a series. Ideally, it would be something outside of the younger demographic like on Showtime or HBO. I’d like to work with a little more freedom outside of the Disney/ABC Family/ Nickelodeon realm. But I’d not be against doing a series. You’ve got steady work for six months of the year, then you can shoot movies for the other six months. It would be absolutely great. If I could get to a point where I was shooting for half the year and taking offers for movies the other half, I’d be very happy.
How do you keep yourself in such good shape?
That just stems from hockey. I was playing for seven days a week, an hour a day. So once I stopped playing Hockey, I was going to the gym maybe five days a week. Then living two blocks away from Runyon Canyon, I’ll hike that five nights a week. I’m not a gym rat, but I spend a lot of time there.
What are your favorite shows on TV? Do you watch Heroes?
I’ve TIVO’d the 2nd and 3rd season of Heroes, but haven’t watched them yet because I’ve heard the show died. Even the creator apologized for it, so I’m not looking forward to diving into that, but you never know. I was a huge Friday Night Lights fan, but that’s not on anymore, or is up in the air. Entourage is my other show, watching that and dreaming about that is just fun in itself. I’m much more of a TV guy than a movie guy.
What was the last movie you saw?
I just saw Slumdog Millionaire the other day. It’s an independent movie from Danny Boyle, and it’s one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. If anybody out there hasn’t seen it, they should definitely check it out. Other than that I saw the new Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, and it kept me entertained. I try to see as much as I can, because it’s research.
Do you have a myspace page?
I don’t. There are a couple of fansites that I’m aware of, and there’s a Facebook fan page that I check out sometimes.
Do you want to direct eventually?
I can’t see myself directing, but I’d love to produce. I see myself having smaller ideas throughout the process of making a movie, while we’re shooting, but having to actually visualize the movie is just way too much to have on my shoulders. Put me behind the camera with minimal responsibility, and I’m very happy.
