“I said, ‘I don't know anything about producing,’” Julie Bowen said of the earliest conversations surrounding Prom Pact, a Disney-branded teen rom-com that finds the Modern Family star serving as an executive producer. Julie was joined by the stars and director of the film at the TCA Winter Press Tour, where she shared that Modern Family writer Anthony Lombardo gave her the pitch and she worked with one of the show’s EPs, Rachael Field, to pitch it to Disney. “What I like about it is developing the story a lot. I liked finding all the pieces. I loved finding Anya [Adams, director]. Melvin [Mar, EP] had read the script and literally brought us Peyton and said, ‘This is the perfect person.’ So, that's exciting and that's so fun. And then finding all the right voices. Because, really, what you're trying to do is put a good cabinet of ministers together and let them do what they do well. And if you've done it well, then you back way off.”
(Disney)
“One of the reasons why I immediately connected with this project and with Mandy, in particular, is because she is so focused and driven, and seeing how that drive can sometimes block out a lot of life,” Peyton Elizabeth Lee said of her role as Mandy Yang, a salutatorian doing everything in her power to get off the waitlist at Harvard. Peyton has been acting since she was 10 years old, with her breakout role as the title character on Disney Channel’s Andi Mack, so she knows a thing or two about determination and following your dreams. “I'm very happy with the way my life has gone, and I'm so happy to be here. But when you're pursuing things in such a focused manner, it is easy to forget to stop and enjoy it all. And so between work and school, I'm in college right now, this is kind of my time where I'm trying to do what Mandy does in the film, just stop and enjoy it all and not try to rush into the next thing or think about the past, but really just live in the moment, which I think is a theme of the film and also a theme in my life.”
“I originally auditioned for Graham,” Milo Manheim revealed, who plays Mandy’s best friend Ben in the film, rather than her love interest. Milo rose to fame as Zed in the DCOM ZOMBIES trilogy, taking on a more fleshy role in Prom Pact, but also unlocking his awkward side. “At first, I thought we were so different. I was getting ready to play a caricature. But as I explored him a little bit more, I realized that there's a lot of similarities between us. We both really don't want to let life pass us by. We want to take every experience we can get. It's a little bit harder for Ben to jump into things than I feel like it is for me. I love to make a fool out of myself, and I just do whatever I want to do. But I definitely could pull from that with Ben. He is definitely the most different character I've played to myself, because I feel like, with ZOMBIES and School Spirits, I'm just playing a slightly different version of myself, whereas in this movie, it's a completely different character, and I had to rewrite the script a little bit, no pun intended.”
“We don't have prom in Australia,” revealed Blake Draper, who landed the role of popular jock Graham Lansing, the quintessential teen rom-com jock. “This was my first feature film, and it was my first time really being out of the country, Australia. So to be away from my family as long as I was, it was a scary prospect at the start. And it was just amazing that I had [Peyton and Milo], because they really became my rock… We became so close.” In addition to not having grown up looking forward to prom, Blake had also never played basketball before being cast as the school’s MVP. “Luckily for me, my older brother is a basketball fanatic, and he's amazing at basketball. So I remember getting the first audition. I just had this weird feeling that if I didn't play basketball every single day for hours, that the universe wouldn't gift me with this role or something. So from the first audition, every single day, I just made sure that I always had a basketball in my hand. And then I had coaching back in Melbourne. I had a few coaches there. And then I had a coach in Vancouver… But I haven't touched a basketball since the wrap, so I've lost all of my basketball skills.”
“Disney's kind of pushing the envelope a little bit and stepping into a new teen rom-com world,” director Anya Adams shared about some of the film’s more mature aspects, which typically get watered down into a more aspirational childhood view of high school rather than the realities of it, as depicted in projects like High School Musical and ZOMBIES. Like your typical teen rom-com, Prom Pact comes with a TV-14 rating. And while Julie Bowen shared that the Disney Channel broadcast will have a less objectionable edited version than on Disney+, the film is something new for the brand. At the same time, the core message of the film is about following dreams and not giving up on them. “One of the things I wanted to make sure about was that it wasn't about the girl making the decision for the boy. It wasn't like everything surrounded the boy. And so, one of my favorite shots in the movie is the end when Peyton gets in the car with her parents, and we just see that she's resolved. She's done everything she can. Mandy's done everything she can… She's kind of wrapped it up, and now she's going on to her new life. And, yes, [a] cliffhanger happens at the end of the movie. But it's a strong young woman who's made choices for herself, and she feels good about them.”
Disney’s Prom Pact premieres tonight at 8/7c on Disney Channel and starts streaming tomorrow on Disney+.