Star of ‘Schooled’ taps memories for teacher role
It’s not difficult for AJ Michalka to think about the special teachers in her life while playing an educator in the new ABC comedy “Schooled.” So much of her time in school took place while working on the Sony Studios lot, where the series spun off from “The Goldbergs”’ is filmed.
Michalka, 27, has been appearing on TV shows since she was 11 — including appearances on “Passions,” “Oliver Beene,” “The Guardian,” “Birds of Prey,” “General Hospital” and “Six Feet Under” — while going to school. That meant she did much of her classroom work on set with a studio teacher.
“It’s a thrill for me to have those people locked away in my memory banks, so I can now use them in playing a character,” Michalka said. “I am able to reference things that I wouldn’t usually be able to reference as an actor.”
In “Schooled,” set in the 1990s, Michalka plays Lainey Lewis, the new music teacher at William Penn Academy.
In the 1980s setting of “The Goldbergs,” Lainey dated Barry Goldberg (Troy Gentile). That ended, though, and, after graduation, she began pursuing her dream to become a rock star. When her music career failed to launch, Lainey needed work, and the William Penn graduate landed a job where she finds herself a colleague with Mr. Glascott (Tim Meadows), Coach Mellor (Bryan Callen) and super-teacher Charlie Brown (Brett Dier).
A spinoff of a hit comedy such as “The Goldbergs” is both a burden and blessing for the cast of “Schooled,” which premiered Wednesday after “The Goldbergs.”
“We are blessed in
that we already have an established hit show leading us in, which is amazing,” Michalka said. “But there also is a kind of pressure.”
Michalka likes that through her time on “The Goldbergs” and now with “Schooled,” she has been able to play a large arc with Lainey. In “The Goldbergs,” she was a student trying to figure out where she was going in life; the new show allows her to play the character as a career woman.
“We are seeing Lainey in a different light,” she said. “We are seeing her in a world where she doesn’t necessarily have a lot of respect for these people, which is unfair, but kind of how it goes when you are her age. Now, she gets to see exactly what these guys have done and how they function with these kids.”
Along with her work on “Schooled,” Michalka continues her voice acting, providing vocals for Stevonnie on “Steven Universe” and for Catra on “She-ra and the Princesses of Power.”
“There are days when I am working on ‘Schooled’ and ‘Goldbergs’ and ‘Shera’ at the same time,” she said. “It’s insane, but I love it.”
Voice work seems a natural fit, Michalka said, because of her love of music. The actress is an accomplished musician who plays the guitar, piano and percussion.
She and her sister, Aly Michalka (“izombie”), have released two albums, and the platinum-selling recording artists have contributed to the soundtracks for films such as “Secretariat,” “The Game Plan” and “Herbie: Fully Loaded.”