Phoenix native dishes on ‘High School Musical’
Sofia Wylie of Phoenix has been on national television for almost a decade. Only a few months ago, she celebrated her 17th birthday.
On Friday, May 14, fans of “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” will see the dancer and actor reprise the role of Gina, who is described as a “transfer student and ambitious yet entitled theater kid,” when Season 2 premieres on Disney+.
The series is a “mockumentary”style show about theater-loving students who attend the high school where the wildly popular “High School Musical” movies were filmed. As the title of the show suggests, the premise of the first season is about the teens putting on a production of “High School Musical.”
In Season 2, which premieres after leads Olivia Rodrigo (Nini) and Joshua Bassett (Ricky) rocketed to online stardom in the past year through a combination of gossip about their rumored romantic relationship and the launch of their solo musical careers, the group takes on a new project: “Beauty and the Beast.”
“I think the first season always carries such excitement because everyone’s meeting each other for the first time,” Wylie told The Arizona Republic. “In the second go-around, there’s just much more familiarity with everything, whether it’s the crew and the cast you’re working with or your character and the script.”
‘Whenever I think of home, I always think back to Arizona’
Wylie, 17, was born and raised in Phoenix and trained as a dancer in Hollywood. She started dancing around age 8 or 9, she said, and pursued it as a career when she was 10.
“Phoenix, Arizona, is my home and I love it (but) I’m barely ever there, which is so sad because I’m always traveling and I’m always filming in different places,” Wylie said. “But whenever I think of home, I always think back to Arizona because that’s where home base really is in my heart.”
You might have seen Wylie in Disney’s “Shook” or “Back of the Net” — “amazing projects where I (got) to play such strong female characters” — or talent competition shows such as “So You
Think You Can Dance” and “America’s Got Talent.”
She is perhaps most well known for playing Buffy Driscoll on “Andi Mack,” which aired on the Disney Channel between 2017 and 2019. She is currently filming a Netflix movie called “School for Good and Evil,” a book adaptation whose cast includes Charlize Theron, Kerry Washington, Laurence Fishburne and Michelle Yeoh, in Northern Ireland.
Wylie is the “first one to ever break into the industry out of my family,” she said. Her sister, Isabella, is a studentathlete at Georgetown University and won “Chopped Jr.” in 2016.
“I’ve been very, very blessed and very lucky to have all of the opportunities and experiences that I’ve had so far,” Sofia Wylie said. “I was just so lucky that I had my parents to support me at such a young age and to be able to now grow up in this industry.”
How Sofia Wylie was cast in HSMTMTS
Wylie was filming “Andi Mack” when she auditioned for “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,” which is set in Salt Lake City.
“I think I heard that I was going to play Gina about two weeks before we wrapped the season. So I was like, dang, Utah, I am not leaving you; I will be back in a little bit,” Wylie said. “It was really exciting just knowing that I was able to move on to such a wonderful new project right at the tail end of a project that I had spent such a long time with.”
Gina starts Season 1 of HSMTMTS as
a newcomer to East High School, where the show takes place, when she moves to Salt Lake City with her mom, who moves often as an employee of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
After Gina manages to impress her musical peers with her dancing and singing abilities, she misses out to Nini on the main role of Gabriella Montez in their adaptation of “High School Musical.” Instead, she plays Montez’s best friend, scholastic decathlon team captain Taylor McKessie.
After some uncertainty about whether she can stay in Utah, Gina realizes she created lasting bonds with her East High friends and finds a way to stay with them, despite her mother moving out of Utah in Season 2.
What to know about Season 2 of HSMTMTS
When the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the filming of Season 2, it made Wylie more grateful for her job.
“2020 has been different for everybody in the sense that a lot of productions were shut down due to COVID,” Wylie said. “And so that, of course, happened to our production where midway through we had to stop filming.
“But coming back on the tail end of that, I think that made us even more appreciative of the fact that we are able to do what we love every single day.”
Some of Wylie’s personal highlights of the first part of the new season include a montage of the cast singing “Belle” from “Beauty and the Beast” as well as the performance of an original song.
“(’Belle’) kind of had this ‘Pitch Perfect’ style where it’s cutting in and out of all of us singing the same song (while) auditioning,” Wylie said. “And some of us are competitive; some of us are supportive. Some of us are laid back or nervous. And I think it really encapsulated what it’s like to be auditioning as a high schooler.”
Gina joins a trio with Kourtney (Dara Reneé) and Ashlyn (Julia Lester) for an audition in a fantasy-style sequence — an experience that Wylie loved.
“It was so much fun filming that, so much fun rehearsing that. And I just love the song overall,” Wylie said. “I think it’s a wonderful message and it’s such a strong girl-boss anthem that I definitely have on repeat all the time.”
Wylie and the cast are joined by some guest stars this season, including Derek Hough of “Dancing With the Stars,” Roman Banks and Andrew Barth Feldman of “Dear Evan Hansen” on Broadway, Olivia Rose Keegan of “Days of Our Lives” and Asher Angel — also born and raised in Phoenix — of “Shazam!”
Angel’s appearance on the show marks an “Andi Mack” reunion with former co-star Wylie.
“It was nice to have my childhood buddy back,” Wylie said. “He’s incredible.”
Besides exercising her acting and dancing chops in HSMTMTS, Wylie looks forward to “doing as much as I can” by also developing her talents as a producer and director through her own production company, AIFOS Productions. Through AIFOS, according to Deadline, “Wylie aims to find material focused on strong female storylines that celebrate unique culture and experiences.”
“It’s been a wonderful 10-ish years, a little less than that, and I hope to continue,” she said. “In my heart, I know I just want to keep growing because I’m never satisfied with just staying stagnant.”
How to watch ‘High School Musical: The Musical: The Series’
Season 2 of “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” premieres Friday, May 14, on Disney+.