Before she started filming her role in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (HSMTMTS), people told JoJo Siwa that the cast was the best, emphasizing how much fun she'd have on set — but she took it with a grain of salt.
“I was like, yeah, everybody says that about every show," JoJo tells Teen Vogue just ahead of her debut appearance. Quickly, however, JoJo learned it was true. “That cast and that crew is the most welcoming, the most fun, the funniest, the most lighthearted, the best energy to be around. I can't even explain how fun that environment was to be a part of for just a couple days.”
JoJo makes her HSMTMTS debut in the September 7 episode, “Camp Prom,” as Madison, a Camp Shallow Lake alum who returns to visit her ex-girlfriend, Maddox (Saylor Bell Curda).
“She is a cool little camp alum and she has a cute little crush, a cute little fling with the character Maddox,” JoJo says of her character. “She's a little bit of a hero character. She comes back in to save the day and help Maddox.”
The opportunity was sweetened by JoJo's fandom for the original HSM movie franchise. “Who wasn't?" she laughs. “I feel like if you could find somebody in the world who wasn't, then I'd have to give you a million bucks.” Though she didn't film with any OGs like Corbin Bleu, who is also acting in this season, she did work with former Hannah Montana star Jason Earles, who plays Dewey on the show and also is their dialogue coach. “Anybody who knows me knows Hannah Montana was like the show. Hannah Montana is the reason why I wanted to be a pop star when I was little. She's the reason why I'm doing this now. [Working] with Jason Earles, I literally was dying all day long … such a full circle moment."
Earlier episodes of the show reveal Madison and Maddox had previously dated, but had broken up at a past camp prom. Coming on screen as a queer character allowed JoJo to recognize a bit of herself in the role, she says, and to be part of a new wave of LGBTQ representation. She remembers watching Disney Channel show Good Luck Charlie — it was the first family TV show she'd seen with a gay couple, who show up briefly in a 2014 episode.
While being part of the increasing queer representation on screen can come with pressure to look and act a certain way, JoJo says she takes her responsibility seriously, but doesn't feel the need to conform.
“Growing up, I was always just JoJo and I never played a character. I was always just who I was,” she says. “So, I think I lost that, ‘Oh, I have to look a certain way or act a certain way,’ because I was never acting. I do feel there's a sort of [pressure] like, whoa, you can't mess up. But then at the same time I'm like, 'how would I mess up? What could I do that I wouldn't mess up?' I know my morals and I know my values and I know what I would and wouldn't do.”
That sense of self is clear on JoJo's TikTok, where she'll occasionally address negative comments people make about her using humor. JoJo says she uses the block button for things that really bother her, but when people make fun of things she's not hurt by, she likes to beat them at their own game.
“I think hate comes out of a place of … it's fun for the hater to hate. But if you make it so it's not fun for them, then they're not going enjoy doing it anymore,” she says. JoJo does that by leaning into what haters say — by making her hair bows bigger or her sparkles sparklier. And she publicizes it on social media so her fans can learn how to cope with bullying.
“A lot of people get bullied for the same things that I will. And even if they don't, they can relate to it. I think that is something that I have the power to help people [with],” JoJo says. “You're never going to stop the bullies as much as you want to. You're never going to stop the bullies, but what we can do is control how we feel about them, how we think about them, how we respond to them.”
As she readies for the world to see her HSMTMTS role, JoJo says she hopes fans want more of her character.
“I think Maddox and Madison could have a really cool story. And I think that it has a lot of things that a lot of kids will be able to relate to between the two of them,” she says. “I hope they're invested in it and I hope they want more, and I hope they care about those two characters individually, but more so together.”
So will there be more Mad and Mad on our screens? JoJo Siwa won't say.
“I'm not getting in trouble today,” she says, smiling.
