Popped spoke with Tiana Le, Tisha Custodio and Cricket Wampler about Big Shot Season 2, working alongside John Stamos and the cast, their Disney fandom, gender equality in sport and what they hoped to explore in a third season.
JMJ: The first thing I wanted to ask wasn’t about Season Two but about Season One. The scene in the finale where you were all marching to Black Pink – Did you know at that moment that it was going to be Blackpink? Or did the director just say, you know, “make it as badass as possible?” and we’ll add some music in post.
TL: Definitely the latter. We had no clue that it would be BlackPink. Then I remember I literally watched it. I was like, “They played BlackPink!” and it was crazy. We had no clue
CW: I think we had some sort of faux music, but they were like, “This isn’t what we’re using” and they were like “strut!”, and we were like, “okay!”
TC: They were just like, “make it as badass as possible and just walk”.
JMJ: Obviously on Big Shot, you work with John Stamos, Yvette Nicole-Brown and Jessalyn Lessig. How exciting is that for you as actors to be able to work with names like that?
CW: Yeah, it’s absolutely awesome. I think we all knew who everyone was before we got to work with them, but we didn’t know we were going to get to work with them until we already had the role. So I feel like that was a really exciting twist because it was like, “What do you mean these people are tied to this project?” But yeah, they’re all just all timer’s literally. Yesterday I was watching Prom Night, which is just a movie that Jessalyn is in and she just, like, appears in everything. There’s John who, like, is Uncle Jesse. And then there’s Yvette, who’s great. And then there’s like Jessalyn, who just is in everything. And so I always laugh when I watch something else that she’s in because I think it’s so cool when actresses or actors are just around and everything. But yeah we learn a lot from them
TC: They’re incredible, we learned a lot from them. They really took us under our wing and they just taught us a lot about the acting industry. I’m just very grateful and I’m pretty sure Tiana and Cricket are about the same.
TL: Yeah, for sure. I mean, working with them is always such a pleasure. We found out first about John because he’s John. So everyone was like, “Did you know?” And I was like, “Oh yeah”. And then you found out about Yvette Nicole Brown. I’m like, “You mean the woman I watched the entirety of my childhood?” Like, I get to work with her and now you have scenes with her. Then Jessalyn is just amazing. Because you watched Jessalyn, too, on Glee. So I think it’s sort of surreal to think of like these people that you grew up watching and grew up essentially aspiring to be you then get to work alongside. It’s a very, very surreal experience and I think we’re all just extremely grateful to have them
JMJ: What would you say is possibly your favorite thing about working on this show?
TL: For me, it’s like the love and the sisterhood that we have. I think especially going through a pandemic together. I mean, we met in 2019 and then 2020 happened. Now we’re here in 2022, and we’re only doing Season Two. So we spent a lot of time together. We really have gotten to know each other and I think going on set everyday doesn’t even feel like work – it just feels like hanging out with like some of your best friends.
TC: To piggyback off of that, I’m an only child and I never had sisters. And I was like, “Oh my god. I get to like hang out with a bunch of girls that are very supportive and like so much fun to be around”. So it’s a blessing, honestly.
CW: I would say that’s also probably my favorite part. I always talk about how it’s so fun that there’s so many of us because it’s like, “Oh, this person’s like, you know, has a scene they need to focus on so they can’t hang out in between scenes. So I’m going to go knock on this trailer door” or like, “Oh, that person’s in a mood, I’m headed over here.” So we all just like, there are no hard feelings. It’s more like sisters than friends because it’s just very easy and it’s fun. You can’t, you can’t help but bond when you do that much basketball practice together.
JMJ: Are there any sort of elements of yourself and your personal life that you’ve sort of put into your characters in the show or is it sort of like a whole new persona?
CW: That’s a good question. I would say Samantha was not a full character really when they cast me as her. In the end, I found out they kind of went off of how I was playing her. Kind of how I am in real life. It was all confusing. But I will say it’s been very interesting. I’ve had people that know me personally reached out a lot and be like, “You’re a lot more like Samantha in Season Two, like we see a lot more Cricket in her now.”I think that came with just being able to have a little bit more material to really try to dive into that. But I just thought that that was such an interesting thing because some people are like, “you’re so different than your character” and some people are like “butt I still see aspects of you so personally”. I definitely have some sprinkles of Cricket in there.
TL: I think the writers definitely wrote our characters off of us. I think like in the first season, obviously the characters have been written, but when they met us, I think those scripts that came after we had the whole, you know. “Hi, I’m Tiana. Nice to meet you”. Like, the characters from that point on were so ingrained with like the little quirks we had. They could tell the dynamics we had as a group. I think they really kind of just wanted to highlight the natural connection we all had. So I would say if you watch it like this, maybe the moments where we’re fighting, you know, or like there’s conflicts, we really conflict as a group. I think our characters are extremely similar, especially mine like Destiny. I would say I put 90% of me into Destiny.
TC: The writers are incredible in this series and especially in Season Two, we’re very similar to our characters, especially Mouse. I just feel like I’m extending who I am as a person when I’m playing Mouse. Obviously there are differences but like very minimal. They’re like little elements, like being Filipino in the show that’s just like, “Oh my god, I get to play a Filipino on the show” – that’s incredible.
JMJ: I’ve also spotted you’ve got a Mickey Mouse pumpkin in the background, Tiana so that’s very cool.
TL: Listen, listen. My mom, she was a hawk on the Disney website because they sold out immediately, like, immediately. So, like every 5 minutes she had, like refreshed and at like nine in the morning. She got that. So we have to display. We’re very proud, you know. We love Disney. Huge Disney fans
JMJ: So D23, was that fun?
CW: That was really fun. I’m not a huge convention person. I just had never been, so I didn’t really know what to expect. So personally I thought it was so cool and just like a lot to take in at once and especially to be on the creator’s side of it. I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is just this is just awesome.”
TC: I’m a convention person and I was like, “Oh my God, this is amazing”. So it was incredible and like getting to see the people in person who actually watch our show. It’s surreal.
TL: I had gone to Comic-Con when I was younger with my family. I dressed up as Ahsoka. So then coming back here now to go to D23 and to see all the cool Disney stuff and the Star Wars stuff – it was such a cool experience and especially behind the scenes, I loved it.I had an amazing time.
JMJ: The next question, so it carries on really nicely…I asked Jessalyn this as well. Is there a Disney+ show that you’d love to be a part of perhaps Marvel, Star Wars, any of that that you’d throw yourself into?
TL: All of the above. I’d love to be part of literally anything. I’d also love to play a villain one day. I think personally.
CW: I feel that I’m just ready for like, I don’t know, a show about me! There are honestly so many different vibes that Disney+ covers that I think it’s really cool. I feel like you can go so many directions with that question because it’s like, Yeah, do I want to be a villain? Do I want to be in the Star Wars world? I’m not a huge fan of either those to watch as much, but to be a part of – I think that process would be incredible and so cool to be part of. So I’m not ruling anything out.
TC: If there was a Princess Diaries 3, I would want to be in it. But I don’t know if that’s going to happen.
JMJ: Season Two obviously brings the boys into the picture and I really liked how it raised a lot of points about gender equality in sports. How important as storytellers, for you, was bringing that in this season?
TL: I mean, I think it was huge because it’s sort of what our show represents. You know, it represents strong women and it represents, you know, girls who are not afraid to go for what they want. I think the introduction of the boys really served to show just how strong we as characters are, but to show that, you know, those inequalities do exist and even in a place where we are supposed to be prioritizing women and prioritizing girls in sports and all of that, you know, those inequalities still managed to find their way to kind of seep in. So I think we did a good job at highlighting that and hopefully continuing to push some change about it.
CW: Yeah, I feel like we covered it a touch in Season One, but I feel like, yeah, bringing Ava in, who comes from like the realm of, you know, professional sports. So she already has that, same as when the boys come in and she’s like, “This is how it is in the professional world, in the high school world and all the worlds”, so I feel like, yeah, it definitely felt very important and obviously is a very real issue. So I like that we covered that.
TC: Especially in Season One, we lived in kind of a bubble and when we went to season two and we introduced boys and it just became like real life. It’s just so important to highlight that because it’s so real and there are so many inequalities in sports. I think it’s just so important to touch on that.
JMJ: Final question, should you guys get picked up for Season Three? Is there anything in particular you’d like to see? Is there a particular direction you’d want to see the story go, perhaps?
TL: I think we’re all hoping we’re all hoping for Season Three, but I think it’d be really interesting to see. I know we have Nell’s character starting to go into college, but I think it’d be interesting to see maybe a time jump or something interesting like that and see everyone kind of start to go their own separate ways and in life in the show, you know, I’d love to see what Destiny ends up doing. Obviously what Myles ends up doing, where they end up the college, do they go to college together? I think there’s a lot of questions that can be answered in another season.
TC: Yeah, I personally like to see Mouse come into her own a little bit more. You kind of see that with the help of Harper, but I want to see her just become her own woman and just not depend on someone else to be more confident like that.
CW: Yeah, I would say I love the relationship aspect of the show so much between friendships and romantic and whatever. So I feel like if we had another season, I would love to like dive deeper into very specific friendships and like really see how people operate and like just more into that because I feel like we haven’t had that many scenes where it’s like two girls or a couple of girls. I know that Tiana and Nell [Verlaque] had a couple of scenes like that, but it’s like I feel like I love those moments so much to watch as a viewer that I feel like those are super special
Watch The Full Interview
Big Shot Season 2 is now streaming on Disney+.
