Kenny Ortegahas done it again.
Because the stars behindJulie and the Phantomsare more than just actors singing songs onscreenthey’re actually a real band.
The nine-episode first season is sweet, feel-good fun with surprising emotional depth.
But it’s the music that setsJulie and the Phantomsapart from Ortega’s other hit franchises.
For the first time, the songs take on a life of their own.
And that’s exactly what Ortega set out to do from the start.
“I wanted to find a cast that could be a band.
And then I wanted to have music developed for them with their input,” Ortega tells EW.
“And so all of that happened.
“And from the very time we pitched this for Netflix, it was never just a series.
“We’ve worked so hard to make that real,” he says, wiping his eyes.
“I can’t tell you how much love and effort we’ve put into this.”
“And then what I was looking for in finding a Julie was a Julie from the block.
I didn’t want a glossy, over-experienced actress.
“I expected these four kids to be able to really do it all.
And they do.”
But auditioning forJulie and the Phantomswas unlike anything he’d ever experienced before.
“It was terrifying,” he tells EW.
Despite all that prep work, disaster struck.
“I completely bombed my audition,” Joyner admits.
It was so bad, and so embarrassing.
Gillespie, a hugeHigh School Musicalfan, auditioned with songs by Shawn Mendes and Backstreet Boys.
“They made it their own,” he says.
“There was just an instant chemistry,” Shada adds.
And then when we had Maddie, it just sent it over the top.”
Finally, Ortega couldn’t deny the magic he was seeing with this foursome.
And they came out onto the stage and they huddled in a band circle.
And it gave me goosebumps.”
The four actors had no idea they already were Julie and the Phantoms.
But they acted like it anyways.
And that just made me even more nervous,” he says with a laugh.
Can I book anything after Nickelodeon?
It was huge."
“It felt like it was ours for the taking at that point,” Shada adds.
We acted like we were actually the band performing onstage.
And then they told us right there that we were the band, which was insane."
Into the studio
With all four roles cast, the real work began.
“Talk about binge-listeningit was just an entire few days listening to all these demos,” Gillespie says.
“I was so into it that I lost my voice.
When I finally got my voice back I only had like a week-and-a-half to prepare to record.”
“It really felt like we were a band and not just people hired to perform this music.
When it came to creating and recording each of the songs, Ortega had specific goals for each one.
“That was the goal: Don’t hide it, double-check we see it,” he says.
These kids felt so comfortable in the space when they were recording.
They were fearless, and they really lost themselves in the work.”
“He really made sure we could do what we needed to do.”
He adds that watching Gillespie’s work ethic also inspired him to give it his all.
“We worked on it in all our free time.”
“Nobody knew, other than the boys.
We pitched it to Kenny on this really cool night and he loved it.”
Ortega remembers the exact moment when Gillespie and Reyes finally clued him in to their secret project.
We want to play a song for you,'" he says.
“It was so beautiful but in my mind I was thinking, ‘Who wrote that?
Is that Shawn Mendes?'”
he adds with a laugh.
“They finished and I was like, ‘That was gorgeous!
Who wrote that?’
And they looked at each other and laughed and said, ‘We did.
We thought maybe you might like it for our moment where we sing and dance together.’
And “Perfect Harmony” isn’t the only original song created by the real-life Julie and the Phantoms.
“All the promise that I saw in them is there.
They’re songwriters, they’re actors,andthey’re a great band.”
“It’s actually us playing these songs, as a band,” he says.
“We’re not just actors anymore, we are a band.
“We haven’t even really explored the voice of Owen or Jeremy.
Every one of these kids has a major voice,” he says.
