Tonight at 9p on ABC Family’s Chasing Life, Brenna finally gets her own episode and Haley Ramm talked to me about it and her character.
Brenna is a teenager in high school and life is hard enough for her. She has the perfect older sister, who has been diagnosed with cancer, and now she has to compete for attention against that and her sister. Everything has always been April, April, April, but tonight it is all about Brenna.
Since April has been diagnosed with cancer, Brenna has realized that she is bisexual. Her first relationship with another girl didn’t work out because of the other girl’s parents. Now she is single in her private school and things are finally working out for her. That is until last week when her mom told her that April’s medicals bills are piling up and Brenna is going to have to go to public school. Brenna has had enough and tonight she is going to have her say. Ramm describes tonight’s episode as, “It is all about how Brenna has been feeling. How this has affected her. What she is upset about.” Then she added, “She says that she is kind of always living in April’s shadow. She touches on what it has been like to grow up with a sister who is so perfect, most of the time, and Brenna tends to fall behind. She is more of a struggler. She is coming into her own. She just takes a little more time.”
Coming into her own means that Brenna will be dating. Will she be dating a boy or a girl? She said, “Both. I mean, she likes both.”
When she signed on for the role, she didn’t know about Brenna’s sexuality. When did she find out that her character would be bisexual? Right around when they were filming the third episode, she had a meeting with the producers and the writers and they told her the news then. How did she react? She smiled as she shared with me, “I was so thrilled. I think that it makes so much sense for Brenna. She is different. She is kind of the black sheep in the family.” Plus, she says, “I am so excited, to kind of, be that voice on the show for people who watch. It just makes my heart so happy.”
It is also makes her happy when she logs on to Twitter and people are responding to her character. She has followers tell her that they would not have asked out someone of the same sex had it not been for Brenna. In one episode last season, Brenna was bullied and she told people about it. A young boy watched that episode with his mom and then he admitted to her he was bullied. The mom contacted Ramm and thanked for her for giving her son the strength to speak up. When I asked her about being a role model, she humbly responded with, “We are all just playing people who are trying to do their best.”
Something that comes easy to her, because as she explained, “Playing a character where it is so accepted and normal. It was never explained, I think she just said it. She said it again and again and again. It is making it normal, which is should be.”
How does she want things to turn out for Brenna? She says, “I want Brenna to find happiness and peace.” Expanding on that thought, “Just to continue being comfortable in her own skin. I think she will find herself in a very happy relationship.”
Before she gets to that point, she has to deal with leaving her private school and starting a new public school. All of this while dealing with being bisexual in high school, her older sister having cancer and getting to her know her older half-sister she didn’t know about until recently. You thought your teen years were hard? See how much harder they are for Brenna tonight and every Monday at 9p on ABC Family on Chasing Life.
On Monday’s upcoming episode of Chasing Life at 9p on ABC Family, April Carver is going to go wedding dress shopping. As April is looking for her perfect dress, Italia Ricci, the woman who plays her, was doing the same thing as she prepares for her big day with Robbie Amell. The actress was going from store to store to no avail, but her job unknowingly wound up helping her out. She told me, “We were shooting there and I was looking at dresses. I was like I should come here for a fitting. I did and I found one.”
Not only has Chasing Life changed her life, it also helped to save her wedding. How many actresses can say that?
So tune in on Monday at 9p to find out which dress April chooses, and check the tabloids to find out the one that Ricci picked for her future nuptials.
Italia Ricci stars in Chasing Life every Monday at 9p on ABC Family, and it’s one of the most important shows on television. She plays a young woman going through Chemotherapy and that requires her to have many different hairstyles on the show including no hair at all.
Recently, I talked to her about the different hairstyles she has the ABC Family drama. She revealed that, “When I am in the wigs and the bald cap, it helps me be April. It makes my job a little easier.†Then she added, “I don’t have to take such a mental leap because I can see it there visually and physically. I am already April. It becomes a little bit easier to be that.”
Believe it or not, it takes her about 3 hours to become bald for the show. Once the bald cap is on, she can wear it for 12-15 hours and she shared with me that she suffers for her art. She said, “I’ve got blisters and scabs and stuff.” Ricci added, “But at the end of the day, I still have that little bit of guilt because I get to take it off and have my real hair. So I can’t really complain. It doesn’t hurt that bad.”
So would she shave her head for the role? She told me, “I wanted to shave it for last season.” Why didn’t she? The producers wouldn’t let her do it because the show goes to Boston every 10 episodes to shoot exteriors. Then she explained, “We are doing a bunch of episodes on the same day and I am wearing like 5 different wigs, it wouldn’t have made sense for me to cut my hair.” That and they begged her not to do it. Even her fiance’ Robbie Amell is against it. But all she wants to do is cut her “damn hairâ€.
Whether she has her real hair, a bald cap or a wig of whatever length, she is still as beautiful on the outside as she is on the insider. And one day, she will be able to cut her “damn her!†But for now she gets to keep her shoulder length wavy locks.
Italia Ricci plays April Carver, a woman in her mid-20s going through cancer, on ABC Family’s phenomenal series Chasing Life that airs Mondays at 9p. During the first season of the show, her character went through a lot of gut-wrenching moments as she is struggles with her Leukemia diagnosis. Those are really hard and emotional scenes for us to watch, but imagine being the actress who has to portray them. They are not easy. There are a few scenes that stuck out for her that were harder to film than others and she recently talked to me about them.
During the season 1 finale, she finds out that her cancer has returned and she needs to start Chemo the next day or she will most likely not be around two to six weeks from then. After she checks in to the hospital for her treatment, her doctor takes her to a part of the hospital that is under construction and gives her a sledgehammer. April picks it up and starts swinging at anything she can until all the anger is released. It is the type of episode that has you crying from the beginning until the end. So much so, I couldn’t bear to watch it second time.
The crying started for us when the episode aired, but it started for Italia at the table read. She couldn’t help but to get emotional as she read the script, so much so the paper was covered with teardrops. Then she talked about the scene that really got to her, “Don’t even start with the sledgehammer scene. I get goosebumps just thinking about it.” She explained, “It was so emotional. It felt so good. I was terrified to shoot it, but once I did and once I saw it…The whole episode is the most proud I’ve been of anything I helped make exist.”
That was the season finale, but there was episode earlier on that really got to her and her co-star. April and her best friend Beth (Aisha Dee) attend the fake funeral for one of the members in her cancer group whose prognosis is very grim. As the cast gets to the part where they have to sing Daniel Powter’s song Bad Day, it was too much for her. Italia started to cry so hard, she had to cover her face. She said, “This is remotely not something you should see on television because it was such an ugly cry.” Just because the director yells cut, doesn’t mean she can stop the water works. After that scene was finished, Aisha and her went into a corner and let it all out for the next few minutes before they could continue working.
She told me that she can’t hold that emotion in or it will come out in other parts in her life. For example, one time her fiance’ Robbie Amell, accidentally left the towel on the floor and she started to cry uncontrollably for no reason at all.
How does she deal with all of April’s emotions? She has a half hour ride to and from work, so she let’s the tears out in her car, and she also let’s them out in her shower. She earned the right to let them out wherever and whenever she wants. It’s her realistic performance that brings us to tears every Monday at 9p on Chasing Life.
I hope that during season two, as she plans her wedding to Leo (Scott Michael Foster), April will spend more time laughing instead of crying. Even though as we learned in last week’s season premiere, her cancer is not in remission after she finished the latest round of Chemotherapy.
Italia Ricci is so brilliant as April and her portrayal of the character is so honest and raw, that you can’t help but to respect her. Knowing that filming the scenes for her are as hard to do as they are hard for us to watch, makes me admire her even more. She truly is one of the greatest actresses on television today. Make sure to watch her tonight and every Monday at 9p on ABC Family in Chasing Life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKUOoC6nXoE
Before Mary Page Keller had a 24 year old daughter on Chasing Life, she was just 22 on Another World. How cute was the 22 year old in that 1984 episode?
