Milo Manheim and Peyton Elizabeth Lee on '80s pop culture influencing their roles in Prom Pact
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for Prom Pact.
Peyton Elizabeth Lee and Milo Manheim met at prom. Not just any ol' high school prom... the Disney Channel prom.
"Disney puts together a prom each year with a different theme for the Disney kids that don't have normal high school experiences," Manheim tells EW. "Peyton and I met at prom and we made a movie about prom and hopefully, maybe we can go to another prom in the future. We'll see."
"We were actually shooting during my senior prom," Lee says. "So, never been to a real prom, but I've been to several proms on TV." Manheim agrees adding, "Disney prom and TV prom is so much better than real prom."
Those experiences would serve as perfect practice for Prom Pact Disney's newest "prom-com" costarring Lee as Mandy, whose dream is to attend Harvard and Manheim as her bestie Ben, who wishes they had more of a normal high school experience. The two make a pact to go to prom together, but when Mandy gets waitlisted, she devises a plan to win over the schools most popular jock, Graham Lansing (Blake Draper). Her goal? Get a letter of recommendation from his Harvard alum father. Between their tutoring sessions and his basketball practices, Mandy begins to see Graham for more than just a good looking athlete, but along the way she loses sight of her true friendship with Ben.
Lee and Manheim, who also costar in the second season of Doogie Kamealoha, M.D., sat down to talk how the '80s heavily influenced their characters, a car-aoke scene where they couldn't stop laughing, and more.
Disney +
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: This movie has so many '80s rom-com references. Do you have a favorite '80s rom-com?
MILO MANHEIM: I watched Pretty in Pink before we started this movie, so that's mine. I guess I based a little bit of Ben off of Duckie because I love that movie. I saw it for the first time when I was young with my mom (Camryn Manheim), so it's nostalgic.
PEYTON ELIZABETH LEE: My favorite is The Breakfast Club. Similarly, I watched it with my mom when I was little and I remember just loving it. All of the John Hughes movies, you can't go wrong.
Did you take any inspiration from those films?
LEE: I took more general inspiration from the overall kind of feeling of '80s movies, that very kind of warm, just happy, good feeling. But I feel like Mandy is kind of the anti '80s rom-com girl and so I kind of wanted to push against some of those more classic 80's movie roles.
MANHEIM: I think that my inspiration came more so from '80s music than the '80s movies because I could listen to music on the way to work and just walking around Vancouver. I'm sad that I didn't find eighties music sooner. It is such a great soundtrack to my life. It really just like gets you in the mindset, in the physicality of it.
Disney +
When you first read the script, what aspect of your respective characters were you most excited to explore during shooting?
MANHEIM: I personally was really excited to explore Ben's physicality, in the sense that he's not truly confident in who he is. He doesn't want to be seen really. I consider myself a somewhat confident person. I'm consistently getting roles where the character is very confident. So it was exciting for me to play someone who kind of starts off a little bit more meek at the beginning and then opens up a little bit and really has that journey. I wanted to find a way to make that look real and funny, interesting, but also not look over the top and stupid. And also just the friendship that Ben has with Mandy. We had so many fun scenes that we got to shoot because it was so well written and our friendship I think comes across very clearly in the movie.
LEE: I remember when I first read the script, I really appreciated that Mandy's journey in a lot of ways felt pretty similar to my own. I think like both Mandy and I can get very kind of like one track minded and very focused on a very specific goal and kind of get so tunnel vision that we forget to appreciate the world. So that kind of character arc of being so focused on college to then seeing that there's more to life in developing relationships and having fun and appreciating life. That's definitely a journey that I've been on. And so getting to kind of dive into that from a different perspective and through a different character was very exciting for me.
What was your favorite scene to film?
LEE: Us singing in the car is just a classic.
MANHEIM: I was gonna say, you can't deny that was one of the most fun days.
LEE: Like ever. I don't know that I've ever laughed so hard in my life.
MANHEIM: Originally, we were only supposed to know like a little bit of the song, and that was gonna make into the movie. And then Anya [Adams, director] was like, you guys just learn the whole thing. I'm sure we have video footage of us in my room the night before, just banging this song out over and over. That was a really fun scene to shoot and was hilarious. I also loved the party scene. I just loved being around a bunch of people. I always love having people around.
LEE: Also, when we were in the car, the music was just playing in these little earbuds in our ears. So everyone around us, like the whole crew, was just hearing us scream. I think that added to the experience.
Disney + Blake Draper and Peyton Elizabeth Lee in 'Prom Pact'
The movie really makes you wonder if Mandy and Ben are going to end up together in the end. Why do you think it was important that the two best friends ended up with other people?
MANHEIM: I didn't really understand how much I appreciated that aspect of the movie until we were shooting it. That wasn't what glared out at me when I read the script. But that's the relationship I had with so many of my girlfriends in high school. And this is a story that we really haven't seen before in a movie like this. This is a story that happens around the world all the time. Why wouldn't we want to make a movie about this really strong friendship that we have where we're helping each other with our romantic problems? It's something that so many people can relate to. I really like how it ends up that way. It's a movie about friendship over everything else.
LEE: I think if Mandy and Ben had ended up together, it wouldn't be doing justice to their relationship. You don't see it that often, but girl and boy friendships, purely platonic friendships, are everywhere. So I think it's really important that we see those on screen because it's a very honest reflection of life. In Prom Pact, no character fits into the cookie cutter mold, what their character trope would usually be or usually end up as. Actively working against that and staying authentic to these characters and to these relationships was very important and something that I was really proud of with this movie.
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
Related content:
