Interview With Hellcats’ Aly Michalka

Article by Craig Byrne

Please do not duplicate this interview onto other websites; instead just link to this page. A new Hellcats airs tonight at 9PM (ET) on The CW!

Continuing KSiteTV’s coverage from our recent Hellcats set visit, this week we share some words from Alyson Michalka, who plays the series lead Marti Perkins on the show, and she tells us a little bit about what’s coming up next for her character.

“You’re going to see Marti really fight for her place and for her spot on the squad,” Michalka reveals, offering that Alice’s pushing around of her will make her step up her game. “She tries not to let Alice really get in her head. She can kind of set it aside and know that that’s the kind of girl that you don’t want to mess with,” she says, revealing that a “throwdown” between Marti and Alice for the squad position will be inevitable.

Outside of the cheerleading life, Marti’s relationships will come into play, including the building bond between Marti’s teammate Savannah and her longtime best friend Dan. “Dan and Savannah do start heavily dating and there’s certain subject matter that comes up that’s iffy,” Michalka reveals. “There are certain secrets that’ve been hidden and certain lies that are told, but it’s all because Marti wants to protect Savannah and doesn’t want her to know about the past that she’s had with Dan and the fact that there are feelings there. It kind of comes out of left field for her,” she says.

Marti’s romantic life won’t be empty either, as things start to build more with Lewis. “Marti starts seeing Lewis and they end up breaking it to the squad that they’re an item, and I think she expects everybody to freak out and be surprised,” Aly shares, “but everybody’s like ‘yeah, cool. Whatever.'”

“I think they’re a really good match,” she continues. “Lewis is really supportive of Marti and always there to talk to her and be that person who she can go to for advice but at the same time the squad comes first as well, so the boundaries get a little bit blurred when it comes to their relationship as a couple and their relationship as flyer and base.”

This is, however, not Michalka’s favorite relationship on the show. “My personal favorite relationship is between Marti and Wanda,” she reveals. “I love the kind of banter that they have, the awkward strange mother-daughter relationship, the fact that Marti is kind of more the mom in a sense, and she’s the one who Wanda always leans on and who Wanda asks for help all the time and she’s kind of constantly there to dig her out. I love that there is this toxic relationship between the two but that you can’t help but love their relationship even though it’s kind of broken and it’s a little bit unfair when it comes to the fact that Marti has to be the mother. I love working with Gail, she’s my favorite actor to work with on the show, just the fact that she has so much experience and so much knowledge and wisdom as an actress. It’s so amazing for me to be able to share,” she says.

In next week’s episode, “Ragged Old Flag,” the team – including Michalka’s Marti character – end up in a flag football game against the Lancers’ volleyball team. “It’s funny because it ended up downpour raining that day here in Vancouver, so we ended up looking muddy and wet and drenched. It actually made it a little more tough i think, the fact that rain or shine we still play the game, so I like that we were able to incorporate that into the storyline, and the fact that they’re proving to the volleyball girls that they are real athletes and they can handle it,” Aly says.

Aly Michalka can’t say enough nice things about Hellcats producer Tom Welling, who of course has also been the star of Smallville for the past ten years. “He definitely has an insight when it comes to the kind of pressure that you have being the lead of the show,” Michalka says. “We’ve talked at length about just being open and always communicating with your fellow actors and with the rest of the crew, and just being on that kind of wavelength where it’s okay to have a day where you’re tired or you’re worn out, because it’s going to happen to all of us.”

“He definitely said that he’s learned from his experiences and being on Smallville for 10 seasons has really given him an amazing amount of knowledge, not only as an actor but as a producer,” she continues. “He’s been able to direct on the show, he’s been able to produce the show, and he’s not just putting his name on our project. He’s here. He’s at the table reads, he’s in the production meetings, he’s on set watching us film routines and stunts, and I love that about Tom,” she says.

Don’t miss an all-new episode of Hellcats tonight at 9PM on The CW. See the trailer for tonight’s episode below and drop by our forum to talk about the show!