Netflix’s On My Block was among the first of many teen comedies that featured diversity and representation, soon to be followed by Never Have I Ever and the To All The Boys franchise, among others successes. Fans were disappointed when the beloved Block ended its four-season run in 2021, but the series finale set up a new "core four" of young actors to carry the banner in a new series, Freeridge, which premieres February 2 on Netflix. In a recent interview on my podcast Actors With Issues, the stars of Freeridge (pictured above, left to right) -- Keyla Monterosso Mejia, Ciara Riley Wilson, Tenzing Norgay Trainor and Bryana Salaz -- joined me for a conversation on the biggest challenges they faced during production, the lessons learned along the way, and advice they’d give to young actors who want to be where they are one day.
"You can never be too prepared," Mejia said. "We move so quickly and have so many different scenes [to shoot] that being as prepared as you can will really help you."
Her co-star and on-screen little sister Bryana Salaz chimed in, sharing that preparedness helped with navigating her mental health. "Knowing your stuff saves all of the anxiety with so much going on," she said. "To just know it and show up is [a huge help.]"
Trainor, Salaz and Wilson have all previously starred in multi-cam comedies. Freeridge is a single-cam series, which proved to be a new challenge they had to take on because of the format's more rigorous production schedule. "Multi-cam is pretty much 9 to 5 every day and you film two days a week," Trainor explained. "Here we're filming every single day. Sometimes we start at 6 a.m. and other days we start at 5 p.m. and go until 3 a.m. Compared to multi-cam it's definitely more difficult, but I find it more fulfilling as an actor. I don't really have a preference. They are each great in their own way."
"The way I describe it to my family is that with single-cam you're filming every day and on-location, while multi-cam is like theater in front of cameras," Salaz added. "To go from children's TV into more young adult and tap into more mature content and take that step has been so fulfilling for me as an actress."
"The biggest thing I learned was healing my perfectionism," Wilson said in regard to the fast-paced production schedule. "We move so fast that there wasn't time for me to say, 'I didn’t like that one; can we try again?' Just trust that what you did was great and move on. It was very healing." The fast pace of the Freeridge production scheule presented a specific challenge to her. "English is not my first language, so sometimes you can't understand what I'm saying," she admitted. "There's a line in the first episode where I'm just supposed to say, 'What?' and I ended up saying 'Whattt?!' I had such a hard time speaking quickly and clearly."
Trainor agreed that the showrunners instilled the pacing of the series into the cast very early on in the production. "We had to keep things fast, fast, fast!" he said.
Mejia added that each format prepares an actor in different ways. On Curb Your Enthusiasm, in which she had a breakout role in its most recent season, they allow much more improvisation as the series is loosely scripted. "Improv is such a beast on its own and I have so much respect for people who do it really well," she said. "Being on that show made me feel more prepared as an actress to take on Freeridge."
Without getting into spoilers, Riley shared that her character Demi says some homophobic/biphobic remarks toward one of her friends, which she found difficult to do because of her own bisexual identity. "The hardest part [for me] was justifying her actions and still finding love even though she makes mistakes," she recalled. "I had to find a lot of love and care for those situations and it helped me forgive a lot of people in my own life. But it was like a battle to not have resistance in my own mind and just sit in my character.”
Freeridge premieres Thursday, February 2nd on Netflix.
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