You're familiar with the concept of a farm team, right? That
place where would-be professional ballplayers go to get the training &
experience that they need before these talented young athletes are then ready
to move on up to "The Big Show" ?
Well, the Disney Channel has a similar sort of system in
place. And there's no better example of someone who's steadily climbed the
ladder, worked his way up through the ranks at the Mouse House — going from a
guest appearance on "Good Luck Charlie" back in April of 2011 to
starring in his own sitcom (i.e., "Gamer's Guide to Pretty Much
Everything," which premieres tonight on Disney XD at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT) — than
Cameron Boyce.
Booboo Stewart, Dove Cameron and Cameron Boyce in "Disney's Descendants."
Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
July's actually a very big month for Boyce. For less than 10
days after "Gamer's Guide to Pretty Much Everything" debuts, Cameron
is co-starring in what the Company's Marketing team is calling " … the
Disney Channel Movie Event of the Year," "Disney's Descendants."
"We actually shot 'Descendants' last summer,"
Boyce recalled during a recent sit-down interview. "Then we shot a full
season of 'Jessie.' That wrapped production back in March. And then —
about a month after 'Jessie' finished shooting — I started working on 'Gamer's
Guide.' "
Which sounds like a pretty busy work schedule for a 16 year-old. But Cameron
was quick to credit Debby Ryan (i.e., the talented 22 year-old who played the
title character in "Jessie") with showing him the proper way to work
within the sitcom world.
Debby Ryan and Cameron Boyce. Copyright
Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
"Debby came up through the Disney Channel system just
the way I did. She started off playing a supporting role on 'The Suite Life on
Deck' and then eventually graduated to playing the lead on 'Jessie,' "
Boyce explained. "But what Debby did that really impressed me was that she
set the tone for that show. Because she went out of her way to be nice to the
crew … Well, I — along with the other younger members of the 'Jessie' cast
— just followed Debby's lead."
"And that — to be honest — may have been the most
important lesson I ever learned when it came to working on a sitcom. After all,
whether you're talking about a grip or someone who does hair & make-up on
'Gamer's Guide,' at the end of the day, we all come here to do a job,"
Cameron continued. "And if you treat the people that you work with well,
you make them aware that you know that — even though I'm supposedly the star
of this show — that this is really a team effort, that we're all here to make
each other better … We all benefit in the end from that kind of work
environment."
Which — I know — isn't the sort of thing one expects to
hear coming out of a 16 year-old boy's mouth. But Boyce isn't your average
young performer. Having studied dance for years before he became an actor,
Cameron knows first-hand the value of cooperation and teamwork.
If you look to the extreme right in the above photo, you''ll see a very young
Cameron Boyce appearing on Disney's "Shake It Up" as a member of a
youth dance troupe. Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc.
All rights reserved
Speaking of dance, that's another way that Boyce originally
came on Disney's radar. In April of 2011, following his
blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance on "Good Luck Charlie," Cameron
was one of the featured dancers on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars."
That appearance went so well that — in August of that same year — Boyce was
cast as a dancer on the Disney Channel series, "Shake It Up."
And Cameron's appearance on that sitcom went so well that
Disney Channel officials then invited Boyce to audition for "Jessie."
And even though the role that Cameron was being asked to read for had
originally been envisioned as a young Korean boy named Hiro … "Jessie"
's casting director were so impressed with Boyce's reading that they then
actually reworked this part so that it would better fit his talents.
And the same thing sort of happened with "Gamer's Guide
to Pretty Much Everything." Devin Bunje and Nick Stanton (i.e., the Disney
Channel / Disney XD vets who created this sitcom) initially auditioned a number
of young men to play Conor, the 12 year-old video game phenom who is forced to
attend high school for the first time after a thumb injury forces him to retire
from the glamorous professional gaming circuit. But as soon as Devin & Nick
learned that Cameron might be available to play Conor, they immediately begin rethinking
their original take on "Gamer's Guide" 's central character.
"Once we learned that Cameron was possibly available to
come do our show, we decided to bump up Conor's age from 12 to 16 years-old. Because Cameron's that special kind
of performer where — even when he's playing a character who's kind of cocky or
arrogant. Which is the way that Conor behaves when 'Gamer's Guide' 's story is
just getting underway — you still like Conor as a character because of
Cameron's natural sweetness," Bunje enthused.
"Besides, once we had Cameron in place, we could then
play to his strengths. And since you could immediately buy this guy as a
confident, world class video gamer … Well, that then made it much that much
easier to cast 'Gamer's Guide' around Cameron," Devin continued. "We
could bring in talented young performers like Felix Avitia, Murray Rundus and
Sophie Reynolds to play the quirky kids that Conor would encounter once he
returned to high school. Of course, the real challenge here was that — just
like with Cameron — the audience then had to believe that these three had the
skills necessary to make it at the competitive video gaming level once they
join up with Conor to form their high school's first-ever gaming league."
Mind you, what's kind of ironic about the creators of
"Gamer's Guide to Pretty Much Everything" is that Bunje & Stanton
came up through the Disney Channel / Disney XD farm system just like Boyce did.
They started out at Disney Television Animation writing the pilot of "Kick
Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil." Devin & Nick then did some episodes of
"Phineas & Ferb," "The Replacements" and "The
Emperor's New School."
After that, they worked over Disney's live-action side. Bunje & Stanton were
the producers of "Zeke & Luthor." And it was the success of that
skateboarding sitcom (which ran on Disney XD for three seasons) that then gave
Devin & Nick the opportunity to create "Gamer's Guide."
(L to R) Felix Avitia, Cameron Boyce, Sophia Reynolds and Murray Rundus.
Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
And at this point, though the pilot of "Gamer's Guide
to Pretty Much Everything" is only just airing on Disney XD tonight,
they've already shot 11 episodes. And with each new show that they shoot, Bunje
& Stanton get better at tailoring this show to Boyce & Company's
specific talents.
"Take — for example — the episode we're shooting
right now. They've got me and Sophie dancing this week. Which is what the two
of us were doing long before we were ever acting," Cameron stated.
"What I love about that is that meant the writers of 'Gamer's Guide'
actually got to know Sophie & myself as people. They learned that we were
capable of doing as performers and then wrote a scene for 'Gamer's Guide' that
specifically capitalized on our ability to dance. When we all work together as
a team like that … Well, that then means we can deliver a far better show in
the end."
If you'd like to see what Boyce, Bunje & Stanton are
capable of now that they've graduated from Disney's farm system, be sure and
check out "Gamer's Guide to Pretty Everything." Which premieres tonight
on Disney XD at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT.
This article was originally posted on the Huffington Post's Entertainment page on Wednesday, July 22, 2015