While in LA for the #MoanaEvent press trip and Moana World Premiere, we had some fun interviews for other shows as well, including Disney Channel’s Stuck in the Middle! If you’re not familiar with the show, it’s all about a large family with 7 kids!!! “Set in Massachusetts, the series tells the story of the Diaz family, specifically focusing on Harley (played by Jenna Ortega), the middle of the seven children. Harley makes her way using her abilities as a prodigy in engineering to deal with the problems of being in a large family.” We had the pleasure of having a fun, casual interview with the whole family cast –Jenna Ortega (“Harley Diaz”), Ronni Hawk (“Rachel Diaz”), Isaak Presley (“Ethan Diaz”),Ariana Greenblatt (“Daphne Diaz”), Kayla Maisonet (“Georgie Diaz”), Malachi Barton (“Beast Diaz”), Nicholas Bechtel (“Lewie Diaz”), Cerina Vincent (“Suzy Diaz”) and Joe Nieves (“Tom Diaz”)! While we chatted, we learned some fun things about the cast & the show…
5 Fun Facts about Stuck in the Middle:
- Jenna Diaz comes from a large family herself. “I’m one of six kids but if you add one of my nephews there’s seven. But my sister just had another nephew so now there’s eight of us. And they’re always over at the house because we babysit them so there’s eight kids in my family I guess you could say. So it’s pretty big.”
- They’re “straight up” family on set. All of the cast members seemed very genuine in their answers about the cast chemistry that they are totally a family on set! Ariana Greenblatt: Family, just straight up family.
Nicolas Bechtel: Siblings.
Ariana Greenblatt: Off the set we hang out at dinners. And we really love each other.
Jenna Ortega: We see each other Monday through Friday so it’s like we’re always together.
Isaak Presley: Saturdays and Sundays.
Jenna Ortega: It’s like they’re my second family.
Joe Nieves: And that happened right from day one. Right from day one it happened. It was immediate and fantastic.
Isaak Presley: I know for Malachi and I, we’re only children. So like us walking into this as only children, we’re walking into this big family. It was actually like adopting a family.
Ariana Greenblatt: We’re like family.
Malachi Barton: I was just going to say, just like Isaak and I, what he was saying it’s like that in real life, we don’t have any siblings. So it’s like interesting but it’s really, really fun to have siblings on set.
- They love pranking each other on set. The kids got so excited talking about different pranks – especially an Oreo & deodorant prank they pulled on Isaak! So funny!
- They’re humbled and grateful to be a part of the show.
Group: Great. It’s great. Grateful. Overwhelmed.Jenna Ortega: I’m pretty sure I speak for all of us when I say this was like a dream of ours to be on a Disney Channel show. So the fact that we’re walking down the street people are like, “hey, Harley, you want to grab a photo? Hey, Jordan you know like reach out.” It means a lot to us.
Ariana Greenblatt: It makes me happy, I just smile.
Malachi Barton: When I was little I would just watch the Disney channel and be like, wow, I wonder how they do that. And it’s like now we are in this position that we’re actually on a Disney show.
- The kids love that parents/adults like the show too! They shared that they were surprised at adults’ reaction to the show.
Nick Bechtel: It’s really cool when even the parents walk up to you and they say, ‘My family watches, I love your show.’ And so when we started off we thought it was just going to be a kids’ show, and only kids were going to watch it. But now we have parents walking up to like, ‘Oh, you’re one of my favorite characters! You’re one of my kid’s favorite characters!’
You can catch the debut “Stuck in the Middle” short-form series on the Disney Channel App November 24th and on-air December 16!
Disclaimer: I was invited and hosted by Disney the #MoanaEvent as part of an all-expenses paid press trip. As always, all opinions and love of Disney are entirely my own. Photos used in the post are courtesy of Disney Channel/ Rick Rowell.
