Actor Maia Mitchell joins Cheddar News to discuss her new film, 'No Way Out.' The star also discusses what playing 'Callie' on 'The Fosters' and 'Good Trouble' meant to her.

Between Bells

Maia Mitchell Talks New Film 'No Way Out'

come back between Bells everyone. The new action thriller, No way out follows a passionate love affair through Los Angeles that quickly goes south. The young couple wrapped up in drugs and sex, find their love story anything but whimsical and the thriller can't help but beg the question, how far would you go for the one you love? Take a look, you want to go for a smoke and walk? I'm good with sitting What you don't like walking? Not really makes me feel closer to home. Are you trying to take me on an adventure? Yeah, Yeah. You ever hear those uh 7-11 adventures? Not it's pretty wild, all the cool kids are doing it. You win the film star, Maya Mitchell joining us Now, welcome to the show, Maya, I love what I saw your character. Tessa knows how to get what she wants. I love that she seems very inspirational and knows exactly what she's asking for in life. What was it like to portray this kind of character and then transform into Tessa? Um it was really fun at the time. I I've been doing uh this show for a while and I needed to kind of branch out and do something different and something challenging and that was Tessa, she um it was an intimidating character to play because she is so forth, right? Um and so nuanced as well and I think a pretty polarizing character. I think everyone will take something different from her and we'll have a lot of different types of opinions about her and her motives. Um but yeah, she's she's a wild ride. So the snippet gives us a rom com vibe. I know that's not what the story line is at the end, but how does Tessa helped drive the plot to this film? Yeah, I think it's less Tessa and more the relationship between her and Nikki, that sort of this like yin and yang opposites attract sort of wild fast love story. Um and that kind of connection and the intimacy that they're able to to form together is sort of what informs um the sort of spiral downwards the film takes and the lengths that Nikki will will go to to protect her. And so uh yeah, I think, I think at the heart of it though, it is a love story, it's a gory thriller, but at the end of the day it's it's a love story, a gory thriller, but a love story. I love it. I'm sucked in already. Many fans know you from the Disney channel, of course, free forms The Fosters fast forward to this film. Like you said, it's a little gory gets pretty dark. What challenges went into filming this Maya. Um we filmed this whole movie in three weeks, so 21 days. Um we had a lot of rehearsal time, which was great. Um it kind of meant that we were able to show up on set knowing what we needed to do so that the crew um weren't waiting on us, but I mean, as challenging as filming like that is it's also part of the fun of it, you know you don't have time to be figuring anything out on the day and your adrenaline kicks in and you're losing light and you've got pages to shoot and yeah it was just like a very um go go go sort of style of filming um kind of guerilla style stealing shots around L. A. Um And yet we were kind of in character the whole time which was really fun and different for me coming from you know a tv kind of studio world. Um But I mean he was a dream Costa. He's wonderful in the film and um and yeah we had a little fun. So I do want to talk about your former character callie, were you happy with where she ended up? Did you have any say in it? And where would you have liked her to end up? She's exactly where I wanted her to end up. I wanted her to work at the A. C. L. U. I wanted her to get her dream job. I love that she um kind of went out on this kind of high note of going after what she really wanted and and being really honest with herself and getting her dream job. It's kind of everything I wanted and then Jamie her kind of on and off again. Love interest joining her via fate was was fun as well. But I'm really happy with how, how that episode turned out. Yeah, it was a nice send off. So you and I talked about the fosters. I want to talk about the spinoff. Good trouble. It was renewed for season five. Congratulations. We know you exited the project at the end of last season to be closer to your family. Why was this the best move for you personally and for your career? Maya. Yeah, I think, I think it was a combination of both. I could feel that I was creatively ready to to do something else and try something different and I wanted to make sure I left before I felt myself becoming uninspired at work. You know, I never want to get to that place where it starts to feel stale. And so I kind of had felt like it was time creatively but also to have the flexibility to be able to spend more time at home, which I did. I was able to spend eight months in Australia with my family, which was great. I'm back in L. A. Now but it does mean that I have a little more flexibility to be able to be a little more, I guess bicoastal, extreme bicoastal. Well, it makes sense because you played Cali for nine years. You grew up with that role. What would you say to Cali now, if you could talk to Amaya, I just say I'm so proud of her for, for going after what she wanted. I feel like there were a lot of parallels between Callie and I in that last episode. I feel like the rioters were like listening in on mine and Sierra's conversations together on set because um yeah, I think we were both going through the same feelings of like being afraid to make a jump but needing to at the same time. So I'm glad I did and I'm glad she did and that's what, that's probably what I would tell her. Okay, so jumping to your new project, What do you hope viewers take away from? No way out. I think that everyone's gonna take something different from it. I think people will project their own um experiences onto the character. That ending is a little ambiguous. Um So I'm interested to see how people receive um receive the ending, but you know, it's a love story and so I hope it touches people. Um hope doesn't make them too afraid to go on any tinder dates. I have a lot of friends on these sites so I will keep that in mind. I can't wait to watch it. Thanks to actor Maya Mitchell. Her new way, No way out. Hits theaters, video on demand and all digital platforms on august 12th. Good luck. And here's the continued success