Ashley Tisdale has managed to stay so squeaky clean for so long that it is difficult to realize that she is a beautiful 27 year old woman now, and not that girl we know from Disney TV. Well, her guest stint on Sons of Anarchy as the premium level escort Emma Jean should help shake that image totally. Tisdale took some talk to talk to the press yesterday about her guest appearance on Sons of Anarchy and what it was like living on the dark side for once.
“I love Sons of Anarchy,” Tisdale admitted. “I was so excited to be able to be on this show just because I personally watch it, and I felt like…of course I come from Disney and I have a lot of young fans, but I do have fans who have grown with me as well. I’m now twenty-seven, and I was just really excited to do something different for a change. I always want to grow as an actress and this was definitely out of my comfort zone.”
And by out of her comfort zone she means going from the conservatively dressed hotel worker of The Suite Life to slinking around in her undies and riding on motorcycles, in between getting the crap beat out of her by Gemma. Of course, with Sons of Anarchy, the motorcycle riding was an expectation, and for Tisdale it came with some memorable moments. “It was actually my first time ever being on a motorcycle, and Charlie Hunnam was the first person to give me a ride, and I thought that was amazing, because I am a big fan of his and I had the best time. I don’t get star struck because I feel like I’ve met Angelina Jolie, I’ve met tons of people, and for some reason, because I watch the show religiously, I just was so star struck.”
Speaking to one of Sons of Anarchy’s most shocking twists of recent years, the death of Opie, Tisdale described her shock at reading those scenes in the script. “I had only read my part, and then I was reading the script and just being a big fan of it; I was completely shocked. I was sad, and I was thinking this was c
razy. I could not believe it, and the worst part was; I couldn’t even talk to anybody about it because you can’t say anything.”
One of the most interesting things to come out of the interview was the story of how Tisdale became involved with Sons of Anarchy to begin with. “I actually was just a really big fan of the show, and it’s kind of a funny story, but my dad built my house and also actually built for Kurt Sutter and Katey Sagal, and he has for years and I’ve been in love with the show and I was always like dad, ‘you got to tell Kurt’– I’ve known Katey and Kurt for a long time–‘I want to be on the show.’ My dad’s so quiet and shy, he said ‘No, no, I can’t do that’ and it just so happened that Kurt was writing ‘Emma Jean’ and came upstairs to the kitchen and actually asked my dad. He said, ‘I’ve got a favor to ask you; I would love for Ashley to be on the show’ and my dad was like, Oh my God, she’s gonna die. He definitely thought of me for the character, and of course, my agents at first were like; I don’t know; we have to read it. I’m like; I’ve got to do it. I’ve got to do it because, like I said, it is one of my favorite shows. I’ve been a big fan of it for years.”
As for any other show Tisdale might campaign to make a guest appearance on: “Oh man, I love Modern Family; I think that is a great show. I don’t get to watch tons of TV but when I do, Sons of Anarchy is pretty much the number one, but I’m a big fan of TV, and Modern Family is one of them, my favorite. I can’t even think of what other shows. Pretty much Sons was the one that I really wanted to do a guest appearance on.”
See Ashley Tisdale on Tonight’s Sons of Anarchy, “Stolen Huffy” airing at 10PM on FX.
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