411 Movies Interview: Jason Dolley of Cory in the House Posted by Tony Farinella on 05.30.2008
411's Tony Farinella sits down with Jason Dolley for an exclusive interview!
Even though Jason Dolley is only 16-years-old, he shows incredible intelligence and awareness in our interview. Currently,Jason Dolley is on the hit Disney show Cory in the House, where he plays Newt, Cory's fun-loving sidekick. He also was recently a part of the Disney Channel Original Movie, Minutemen, which is currently out on DVD. In my interview with Jason Dolley, we talked about Cory in the House, Minutemen, Robert Redford, high school, and a whole lot more. Cory in the House: Newt & Improved Edition and Minutemen are both currently out on DVD. I hope you enjoy my interview with Jason Dolley.
TONY: With Cory in the House and Minutemen coming out on DVD, this is obviously a very busy time in your life. How are you handling it?
Jason Dolley: Well, I think the important part in staying grounded in times like this is having friends that you have outside of the business. I have Church Youth Group friends that I've grown up with, so to be able to go hang out with them, it takes my mind of all the busyness and helps me kind of cope with it, I guess.
TONY: Let's talk a little bit about Minutemen. The film shows us that there is always something positive in every negative situation, even if it seems horrible at the time. For you, personally, what negative events have helped shape you as a person?
Jason Dolley: Hmm, I'm thinking. (laughs) I feel bad taking so long.
TONY: Take your time. Don't worry about it.
Jason Dolley: Oh, here we go, here we go. I did a pilot for ABC called Enemies that I was really excited about. Basically, it was the story of two best friends that were growing up in high school, and one of them grew up to be a policeman and the other grew up to be a mobster boss kind of guy. So, I played a young version of the mobster, and the pilot was really good and I was really excited about it, but it wound up not getting picked up, which was kind of a bummer at that point, because I was really excited about it and I loved everybody involved. But then a couple of months later, I wound up auditioning for Cory in the House, and I couldn't have done Cory in the House had that pilot got picked up.
TONY: In Minutemen, we also get to see the battle for popularity. Everyone wants to be popular, but they also want to stay true to their own beliefs and personality. For you, personally, how do you manage your Hollywood friends and your real-life friends?
Jason Dolley: Well, seeing friends in the business usually gets taken care of when you do events like The Disney Channel Games or any kind of charity events, because you get to see people from other Disney Channel shows that you're friends with. And, then, for me, I see my home friends on the weekends. If I'm doing something in the middle of the week, like a charity event, I see a bunch of my work friends there, and then on the weekends, I'm at home and I'm at a friend's house locally around town. So I guess that's kind of how it works.
TONY: It seems like a lot of your characters have a certain sarcastic charm. Would you say you are pretty close to those characters?
Jason Dolley: Well, not really for Newt. Newt, really, is only similar to me in the way that we dress and the fact that we both play the guitar. If you've seen the show, you kind of know that Newt is kind of in his own world. He's a good guy and his heart's in the right place, but his mind's not always there with him. And Virgil is one of the closest characters I've played to myself: The way he is, the way he handles himself and his sense of humor and the way he carries himself and presents himself. So, usually they're unlike me in what they do, but I think that Virgil is probably one of the closest.
TONY: I've had the pleasure of interviewing Chelsea Staub, and she is probably one of the sweetest celebrities I've ever interviewed. What was it like working with her?
Jason Dolley: Chelsea's awesome! And you know what? Minutemen was one of the best experiences of my entire life, because everybody on the cast was just like Chelsea. They were all so nice, and we all got to be really good friends right from the beginning. After the first night of rehearsals, we were all calling each other up and going to dinner together and really hanging out and having a lot of fun. So, yeah, everybody was just like Chelsea.
TONY: I have a simple question for you that sort of ties into my next question: Do you go to high school?
Jason Dolley: I have gone to high school. My freshman year was my last year, and I started doing Independent Study this past year.
TONY: With that being said, what was it like portraying a high school student in Minutemen? What aspects of the high school experience did you relate to the most?
Jason Dolley: There's a dance in Minutemen, and actually, unfortunately, my school that I went to was a private Christian school, and they never did dances and they don't have a prom. They had banquets sort of as a substitute, I guess, but they never had dances, so I never got to go through the anxiety of asking a girl to the dance or the depression of being shot down. I never, I guess, fortunately, had to deal with that, but, at the same time, I never got to experience that. And even if I stayed at that same school for the rest of my life, I never would have dealt with that.
TONY: On Cory in the House, Newt and Cory are always going after girls and looking for dates. What's it like to just go for it and not hold back when performing with other actors? I mean, you can really go for it and have a lot of fun.
Jason Dolley: It's actually a lot of fun, because you can kind of mess with them. You can do whatever you want and you can be as goofy as you want, and in the end, that's all gonna be reflected in your character and not in you, so you can be free and be your character and live in your character and not really have to worry about looking bad as a person.
TONY: What was it like performing some of the stunts in Minutemen? What was your favorite stunt?
Jason Dolley: Well, let's see. When we were shooting in the Minutemen headquarters, we had to repeatedly jump off of a diving board onto a big foam bed, and that was actually a lot of fun for all of us, because we had to practice beforehand. We did all kinds of jumps onto these pads from a trampoline, and then when we had to really do it, we jumped off the diving board. So that was a lot of fun, and everybody got into that and we were doing different tricks each time we jumped off. It was a lot of fun.
TONY: Finally, I read on your IMDB page that you're a big fan of Robert Redford. How did you become a fan?
Jason Dolley: I think it was probably my family that sort of showed me the first couple of films, but I think the first film I saw that he was in was The Sting, where he was with Paul Newman as well. And his presence on screen just really affected me, and I really saw what it was like to really master a role and really master what it's like to be on screen. I've always said that if there was a movie about my personal life that somebody was gonna portray me, I would have it be him, because he could convince me that he really was me.
