Friday, January 18, 2008

Has fame changed Miley?


Sure, she's a ginormous star now, but two years ago when we sat down with Miley for the second time, she was a relative newcomer. Here's a snippet of our conversation with her. What do you think? Has she changed a lot since her show's become so successful or is she still the same old down-home girl?

TEEN: Do you have anything in common with Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana?
Miley: Yes, well, since we have the same name it's really easy to relate. But even Hannah Montana and me personally are a lot alike, because even with the show going on, it's really not something that I go around talking about because I want my friends to be my friends, and that’s all Hannah Montana wants, too. So I think my characters Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana and then me, Miley Cyrus, we’re all a lot alike.
TEEN: How have your friends reacted to your success?
Miley: It's kind of crazy, but I’ve always performed for my friends. I’ve never been one to just sit down and be calm and watch movies. I’ve always kind of been the one entertaining them all of the time. I was always singing. When we would go on trips with my cheerleading team, we would always sing and do karaoke. So I’ve always been performing. My true friends are really happy for me.
TEEN: Has your dad given you any advice on your career?
Miley: Mostly, even when I was auditioning, he just wants me to have fun with it. It's not something where I’m just following in his footsteps, it's something that I’m really passionate about. It's still an art to us. It's something we do that we enjoy, it's not really even business now. Being on a kids' show, it's all kids and you’re all really close, you’re like a family. It makes it a lot easier. It's fun and you get to do everything you love and have people by your side encouraging you. It's great working beside my dad; I can always be like, “Daddy, can you help me with this?” It makes it a lot easier on us personally, and on the show it makes it so much easier.
TEEN: What’s a typical day on the show like?
Miley: It's never typical — it's really crazy! With doing lines, and then off-camera and getting everything down and us just being crazy — it's all just really insane, but it's really fun, too.
TEEN: Were you nervous when you filmed the pilot?
Miley: It's really just fun for me, so I wasn’t really nervous. But since I’m the one who had less experience than anyone on this show, mostly I was used to doing theater, which is a lot like sitcoms because you move around a lot; it's physical comedy. I was a little nervous, like, “Well, what if I don’t get all my lines down?” But if there’s something you’re not comfortable with, they’re really good about just running through it in your spare time, or they’ll go ahead and change it and give you something that feels more personal, because all of our characters are really personal and like us.
TEEN: Do you have a career role model?
Miley: I love Hilary Duff, especially because she and I are a lot alike as I'm starting out. She was about the same age as me when she came to Disney. She hadn’t done as much; basically she was at the same stage as I was. It's good to see that you’ve got to start somewhere, and it's so great to start on Disney because everyone gets so close and it's all kids, which makes you feel more comfortable.