Last night’s episode of Make It Or Break it centered around a fundraiser to bring China’s team to The Rock. Sasha is mad about the team that was sent overseas to China, and wants to challenge them to a meet with his dream team in the United States. However, what Sasha fails to tell the [...]
Last night’s Make It Or Break It was huge. It addressed the politics behind the national team, something that the show has never done before. There is clearly a lot of corruption in any sport, and gymnastics is one I have followed closely throughout the years. There have been some interesting decisions regarding coaching and [...]
It’s Prom Night at The Rock…well, at Payson’s school. Last night’s episode “Save The Last Dance” centered around the girls going to prom. Payson finally seems happy to go to school, and has found a new hobby in photography. Her new friend Heather talks about prom night and gets Kaylie and Lauren excited, so they all [...]
Last night’s episode of Make It Or Break It was Valentines day themed. Love is in the air at The Rock. Payson is dealing with life at high school. Her perky “friend” Heather is selling Valentines Day roses and Ike (the boy from last episode) declares that its pointless. Payson makes a donation anyway, but [...]
This season of Make It Or Break It has been quite wonderful, and full of drama. One of the main story lines has been Payson’s injury, and her facing the reality of being a “normal” girl. I recently had the chance to chat with Ayla Kell, who plays Payson about her emotional scenes, her budding [...]
The title of this week’s Make It Or Break It reminds me of Party Down, but I digress. This episode centers around The Rock’s open house event. Kaylie and Nikki seem opposed to the event at first and aren’t getting along as usual. They don’t really get the need to stop practice and put on [...]
Lots of TV news coming out of the TCAs! This piece of news, I am particularly thrilled about (besides the Glee news from yesterday of course).
ABC Family has renewed Make It Or Break It for a 2nd season! Sources at the network have informed me that they have been picked up for ten more episodes. It [...]
After a wonderful premiere, Make It Or Break It kept up its momentum in episode 2 titled Follow The Leader. The girls of The Rock are eagerly anticipating the announcement of the National Team coach, and they all expect Sasha to be named. In a shocking development, rival coach Marty is chosen. Each of the girls struggle [...]
Anyone who reads this site knows that I absolutely adore Make It Or Break It, and all ABC Family programming. I love gymnastics (I am a former gymnast), and when I received word of this show, I was thrilled. The show has more than lived up to my high expectations. It is a look into [...]
What about your role continues to challenge you?
Well, we have a great team of writers. I feel like our characters are always developing. Kaylie started off as one thing and she’s now going into something else completely different. So I have different things that I have to deal with, different issues, different troubles that have to deal with these ten episodes that I didn’t have to in the last ten. In last ten episodes, Kaylie kind of played this golden girl, very naïve. I thought she was kind of—she’s really just soft and she’s now stepped into the role of national champion. And just dealing with all of those things that the writers are giving me, dealing with envy, having to be even more aggressive now because she actually has the title. I think that that’s very challenging because it’s just all different.
Have you had a memorable moment from filming the first ten episodes?
I’ve have a few memorable moments. I just saw this girl the other day. Actually, she was doing a stunt for me. I think only a handful of girls can do this in the entire country and I saw her do this amazing trick. It’s called a Double Arabian. I was able to see it first hand and it was incredible. I was like, “Wow!” I get to see this live. So those are just one of the many things on our set that we get to appreciate and enjoy.
Do you have a background in gymnastics? Did you like watching it?
I was a gymnast when I was younger. My parents put me in gymnastics and I was actually only good at the floor. I was terrible at everything else, especially beam. Unfortunately, you can’t be a gymnast unless you’re good at all of the apparatuses, so I became a competitive cheerleader. I was just the main tumbler for my squad. We competed in big state and national championships. We were on ESPN, did that whole thing. So I’m really knowledgeable about the world of gymnastics and the competitive nature of it and all of that. But unfortunately, I was only good at one of the things.
Has there been anything that you learned from cheerleading that has helped you with this role?
Yes. I think Kaylie is a huge performer. I think her best asset is floor because she’s just such a ham. If cheerleading taught me anything, it was performing. Cheerleaders, they know how to spice it up. They know how to ham it up for the fans and Kaylie definitely does that for her audiences as well.
Now that Kaylie is national champion, she has a lot more responsibilities, distractions, stuff like that. What do you want to see from your character going forward in terms of handling all those new things?
It’s kind of funny answering this question because we’ve already filmed six episodes. What do I want to see? Honestly, I’m pretty happy the way that she’s been handling all of this, what the writers are writing. I didn’t know what to expect after winning the national championship. I didn’t know if it was going to be a good thing or a bad thing because it could have been a negative thing in terms of she would just—once you’ve won the national championship, like well, kind of just give up on the rest because she’s already number one. But actually, she’s working a lot harder. She’s becoming more and more focused as a gymnast. In the last episode, she shed her father and Carter and everything else that was a distraction. And it’s kind of kept that way so far. Like I said, we’ve only filmed six episodes, so we have another four to film. But so far, she’s remained really focused and very, very dedicated to gymnastics, which is what I was hoping for.
