The stars of “Andi Mack” all agree: they couldn’t believe Disney Channel was taking such a risk with their show.
The series, about a young girl (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) who discovers her sister (Lilan Bowden) is actually her mother — and her mother (Lauren Tom) is her grandmother — has featured story lines many networks wouldn’t touch, let alone on a kid’s show.
In the show’s Season 2 premiere on Oct. 27 — a date that star Joshua Rush said is “burned into my brain” — his character, Cyrus, came out as gay when he admitted to having a crush on his friend Jonah (Asher Angel).
“Buffy, I feel weird… different,” he says to his best friend, played by Sofia Wylie.
“Cyrus, you’ve always been weird. But you’re no different,” she responded.
And with that, Cyrus became the first Disney Channel character to come out as gay, and “Andi Mack” changed history.
“The work that I’m doing is really helping people. It’s reminding people that they matter,” Rush, 16, told the Daily News.
“A big part of ‘Andi Mack’ is showing everybody who watches it can see a little piece of themselves in every single character,” he said. “Being able to show people that little part of themselves is so important. It’s showing them their story is valid.”
In another episode, Buffy’s mother returned from the military in a heartwarming story all too familiar for Wylie, whose own grandfather had served during her father’s childhood.
“I pulled from my dad’s experience,” she told The News. “I really wanted to give justice to millions of kids who go through that.”
On Monday, the cast joined several Blue Star military families in New York for a special screening of the episode.
“For military kids, they live a very different lifestyle than other kids do. They’re often moving and living in new places, and getting accustomed to new locations where they’d never thought they would live before,” Meghan Wieten-Scott, the national events manager for Blue Star Families, said in a statement.
“Being able to see their story reflected in real life on television is really amazing. It helps them realize that others care about their story and want to learn about it. It shows the story of military kids and it shows that they’re resilient and able to adapt to new communities, and that they are really worldly as well.”
Those sentiments, ideas from a show that touches on issues relatable to tweens — and issues typically deemed too mature for a kids show — resonated with the young cast, who consider themselves best friends off-camera as well.
Lee, who stars as Andi, said she was drawn to the reality of the show, despite not knowing about the twist into near the end of the audition process.
“It’s a really accurate representation of teenagers growing up,” the 13-year-old Manhattan-born actress told The News. “It shows the hard parts and the best parts and that, when it all comes together, life is a beautiful adventure.”
Bowden, who was the only member of the main cast to know the major twist before auditions, said she could tell from the very beginning how special “Andi Mack,” which was just renewed for a third season, could be.
Friday night, in a special one-hour episode based around Cyrus’ bar mitzvah – an extravagant celebration that includes a chocolate fountain and a fortune teller – “Andi Mack” will feature a literal coming of age on a show that has grown along with its characters. Rush even brought his own history into the episode, reading the same Torah portion from his own bar mitzvah and wearing a tallit given to him by his grandparents, Disney Channel exclusively told The News.
Even a pair of references to Anne Hathaway are a callback to Lee’s audition for the show, in which she raved about the “Princess Diaries” star.
The cast puts themselves into “Andi Mack,” they said, and they want viewers to do the same.
“Anyone of all ages can say, ‘Oh, I’m going through that,’ or, ‘I’m going to go through that,’ or, ‘I’ve gone through that,'” Wylie told The News. “Everyone out there can relate to the show, and I can too.”
