"Big Shot” Star Tiana Le on Destiny, Strength, and John Stamos’ Improv

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Tiana Le, one of the stars of the Disney+ basketball dramedy Big Shot, remembers the hours of work her team put in on the court this season. Sure, the team was the fictional Westbrook Sirens. Yes, it was for a television show. But those wind sprints were real, and so was their teamwork.

“There were many sore walks to the parking lot together,” Tiana laughs while on the phone with Teen Vogue. “It was real team bonding.”

In the season 1 finale of Big Shot, which aired on June 18, the Sirens triumphantly strut into their final game of the year, with Blackpink’s swaggering “How You Like That” as a fitting soundtrack. The show’s first 10 episodes see the high school basketball team, coached by redemption-seeking former college coach Marvyn Korn (John Stamos), find their footing on the court and off. They bond in that specific sports movie fashion: reveling in the blood, sweat, and tears of the game — and the friendships they made along the way.

It was a natural first leading role for 18-year-old Tiana, who paused her senior year varsity rowing season to play a different kind of athlete on screen. Sports run in her family; her older brother plays football for Stanford, and his teammates are obsessed with Big Shot. “To the point where I get phone calls from them like, ‘Hey, what's up with the Sirens going to D2?’” she says. “They're so invested. They sit down on Friday night, these big football guys after practice, just watching it.”

It’s a heartwarming show with a large main cast of teenage girls, each with their own nuanced personalities and conflicts. Tiana is a force from episode one; she plays Destiny Winters, a tall power forward who is almost immediately shamed for her weight by new arrival Coach Korn. Destiny confronts him privately about humiliating her in front of her team. He insists he doesn’t “see people like that,” but she holds firm. When she leaves his office, he’s the one who feels ashamed.

“As women we feel like we have to kind of just take things, like we're supposed to let people comment on our bodies or our weight,” Tiana says. “So when I did the scene, it was very important to me that I went in there and showed Destiny being very strong. Yes, she's crying, but she's not backing down.”

It was actually the scene she auditioned with; all of the cast, including Tiana, tried out for Louise, the popular daughter (played by Nell Verlaque) of the school’s wealthy benefactor. But Tiana was also drawn to the layers in Destiny’s character. Over the course of the season, viewers delve into Destiny’s family life. Her dad died a few years back, and she’s being raised by her mom (played by musical theater icon and The Greatest Showman star Keala Settle) and her aunt, Angel (Daisha Graf). Late in the season, however, Destiny discovers Angel is actually her biological mother who gave birth to her as a teenager. (It should be noted that Keala pulled off those emotive scenes while facing some playful trolling from Tiana, who was determined to distract her. “She's an amazing singer, so anytime it was quiet I’d be like, Keala, please harmonize with me right now. I'd sing a note, and she'd be like, dude, shut up.”) Through all of that complexity, Tiana plays Destiny as hurt but protective of herself, caring and also firm in who she is and what she believes in.

<cite class="credit">Disney+</cite>
Disney+

That steadfastness bonds her to Coach Korn, who steps in not as a father figure but something like a friend. She reminds him to treat people like people, and he encourages her and helps her with her game. Tiana never really watched Full House (in which Stamos plays the iconic Uncle Jesse), but jokes that other cast members were starstruck by John Stamos’s presence on set. “Cricket [Wampler] is a huge Full House fan,” Tiana says. “She's like, I might faint, T you've got to hold me, I might faint.” It’s easy to see that feeling fading away once they began filming — Tiana shares that John liked to improvise coach-speak on set, fully in character as the tough, hyper-competitive Korn. “Like if we were doing a drill, he would just improvise and be like, yeah, Destiny, you missed that one. I’d be like, okay, John, that's not written in the script. Can you make me look a little better on national television? Thank you so much, please relax.”

<h1 class="title">Nell Verlaque, Tiana Le, John Stamos, Monique Green, Cricket Wampler, and Tisha Eve Custodio</h1><cite class="credit">Disney+</cite>

Nell Verlaque, Tiana Le, John Stamos, Monique Green, Cricket Wampler, and Tisha Eve Custodio

Disney+

Tiana began acting in grade school musical theater in Newport Beach, California, but her first TV role was a recurring character in season one of HBO’s Insecure. She was in eighth grade at that time, and recalls pulling up to the set on day one of filming with her mom and marveling at the fact that she had a trailer of her own. The experience was pivotal, she says, and Issa Rae left her with advice she has internalized in the years since.

“She told me, ‘If you don't see the role that you want to play being offered to you or see the characters [you want to play] on screen, then write them. Create them,’” Tiana says. “‘If you want to do this or you want to do something, don't wait for someone to give it to you, you can make it yourself, you have that power.’ That was the first time anyone ever told me that that was possible.”

Tiana is looking ahead to a potential season 2 for Big Shot, but big picture, she’s also thinking like a writer and creator. There are stories she wants to share and be part of bringing to life. “Growing up, I had no one I could look at on screen that looked like me. I had Ni Hao Kai-Lan, and she wasn't even Blasian. And so me being half-Black, half-Vietnamese, I want to give Blasian kids something they can look at and aspire to.” She dreams of being a multihyphenate.

“She's got her own production company, but she's also doing music and having a label,” Tiana says, imagining her future. “And then she's also producing projects that other people are writing and she’s helping push diversity and authentic stories.”

Big Shot season 1 is now streaming on Disney+.

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Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue