Ava Michelle, star of Netflix's 'Tall Girl 2,' joins Cheddar News to discuss reprising her role as Jodi and what fans can expect in the sequel.  

Between Bells

Actor Ava Michelle Talks Returning for Netflix's 'Tall Girl 2' 

Welcome back to Between Bells, everyone jodi and her friends are back in netflix's Tall Girl to the film is a sequel to the first film, Tall Girl and picks up where we left off after jodi's Homecoming speech now she's popular and just booked the lead role in her High school musical. But as the pressure of her newfound popularity intensifies, so do her insecurities take a look. I just want to say how happy I am to watch you face your fears when the time comes for you to be standing on stage. You know, deep down you'll choke you. Finally got your dream. You think you can actually pull this off joining us now is ava Michelle actress and star of Tall Girl to welcome ava so many fans of the first movie are loving part Two. So what has it been like to return for the sequel and every time the second time around, it's been amazing. I'm so excited that I had the opportunity to continue jodi's journey and work with some amazing people again. I think that um I'm just excited as everyone else, but we got a sequel. So, um just being able to be Jody and continue this story has been really amazing. Yeah. This time around, we're seeing your character deal with panic attacks anxiety, as we mentioned, confronting some of her insecurities and kind of being on this pedestal, I guess the popularity and kind of the negative side effects that come with that. Um how does her role in the school kind of play into this situation. Yeah, I think it's it's not only her role in the school, but I think it's so many things. I think in the first film we really saw her conquer her insecurities. But I think the thing that we learn in this film is that you never just conquer self love, that is always a constant battle and you see someone who is the most confident she's ever been, she's in such a good place, she's an inspiration to so many people, but things keep coming down on her, there's so much pressure and and we kind of see her break under it, which I think you know, I can definitely relate to just feeling like you have so much on your shoulders and you don't know if you can do it anymore. Um and I think, you know, anxiety is obviously something that a lot of us are dealing with right now. So being able to address it in this film has been really great and I like that, that's the message that you have, especially with the younger audience out there who may think, oh eventually, like I get to that point, I conquer myself love and I love myself forever, but there are highs and lows throughout life and that resilience is really important and it also doesn't help that her love life is super complicated this time around. So tell us more about how it's getting Juicier three boys in the mix. What was your reaction when you first read the script and saw that? I just feel like I'm like Jody, you figured it out. You found your love and there's other people that you're trying to complicate it with. So if it was me I'd be like, no, not happening. But Jody. Um she, she likes to get herself in those situations. I think she's just, she's so kind and and she finds people really interesting and so she kind of pursues things she doesn't even know she's pursuing sometimes. So it gets complicated for sure. Yeah. And a lot of your fans from the dance moms days will be really excited to see you showing off your skills. Um how was it to learn choreography and put that on display alongside your acting chops. It was so amazing. Honestly, it was such a dream role. I mean dance was my first love and being able to not only dance but singing this one as well was just so incredible. I'd go from dance rehearsals to set and then back to dance rehearsals. And I also think it was fun to be able to explore not just dancing as Eva but dancing as Jody and to dance bad in some scenes. And then also just to um you know, show her appreciation of art and her hard work ethic and be able to put on a show and tell girl obviously a story about someone dealing with the struggles of being tall. I think a lot of, I can't relate to this because I'm a small girl, but a lot of the tall men and women out there can experience, you know, that awkward stage, especially when you're coming of age and I'm wondering why you think the story really resonates with so many audience members out there? Yeah, I think it, I think it resonates with the fact that it's really, truly not about your height. I feel like, you know, the movie's called Tall Girl and that's the direct thing that we're saying. But we're also showing so many different characters going through their own insecurities. And I think that it really on the bottom line is just someone who's insecure about a difference. And I think at some point in our life we're all insecure about that one thing that makes us different and I think it's really amazing like you said, especially in this age to show them that that is their biggest strength and their biggest asset and that's the thing that makes them then. So, um, yeah, I think it resonates because we can really all relate to it, especially in the second film, uh, you know, that that bully that we we here inside of our head. I think everyone here's that all the time. Yeah. And in addition to taking on this acting role, you are staying busy Eva you have two clothing lines. Uh we have hashtag self love club and also identified clothing, which I know is especially close to your heart. Can you tell us more? Yeah, identified clothing is uh my passion project. It's something that my mom and I started my, my brother and my mom and I were actually going to start it, but he unfortunately passed away almost a year ago, um this month um to fentaNYL poisoning, which is one of the worst things that's happening right now and something that we really, really need to talk about because it is killing way too many innocent, amazing people. Um, but one of his passions are passions together was to create this clothing line called identified and his message that he wanted to send with, it was just that we all really struggle with identity, our identity, which I think you know, we see and even tall Girl society tries to put us in these boxes and close this into something that we're really not. And so all we really, truly need to be identified as is human and that was something that was just such a beautiful message that he wanted to share and really wanted to impact the world in a good way with his clothing line. So my mom and I saw it through and um it's something that I'm really, really proud of, what a beautiful way to turn that tragedy into something transformational for other people sending love to your family during this time and also congratulations on Tall Girl too, that's ava Michelle star of Tall Girl too and you can watch the film right now on netflix. Thanks for stopping by.