First of all, you don't know me.
We all about that high school drama.
Girl drama girl, all about them.
High school queens. We'll take you for a ride, and our comic girl shared for the right teams Drama, Queens up girl fashion, but your tough girl, you could sit with us.
Girl Drama, Queens Drama, Queens Drama, Queens Drama, Drahn the Queens Drama, Queens.
Friends.
I'm so excited Ashley Rickards is here with us today. You know her as the incredible Sam. She came in and turned Brook Davis's world upside down and then really helped set it right side up. And I'm so excited you're here today. I haven't seen you since like a pre pandemic convention.
Yeah. I came to something where I was like, because I knew you, saying because we have the same vocal coach. Oh yeah, yeah, so I've seen your face like up on the wall that he has whenever I'm there. So I was like, oh, okay, And then yeah we got together and I heard your voice for the first time. It was blown away you too, Oh my god, No, but you're incredible, Like I wish.
We'd figured out a way to get you to sing on on Wondre Hill. That would have been so fun. I mean at this point, like, you know, we've got dogs eating hearts, we've got Nanny's being shot in cornfields, Like why not, let's just make Sam a rock star?
Yeah? Yeah, why not? Yeah? The dog eating the heart thing is great.
Anything is possible in tree Hill and season seven anything.
Uh well, let's uh, let's get like, let's get to know you a little bit for this audience, because everybody knows you as Sam. But I here's some things that I love that I didn't know about you. It is a that you grew up on a horse farm that catered to children with special needs, which is amazing. What an experience. Like how many years are life? Did you spend there.
A lot on the horse farm?
Uh?
My family doesn't really do anything halfway, so I was, you know, I went to a horse camp one year and then I guess the next year and a half, all of a sudden, we had twenty four horses and we're we're living on seven acres and and yeah we we they have shoes for horses so that like they
can go indoors and don't slip. So we would bring some of the Oh, and I should say they were miniature horses, so I mean I was, yeah, I know, way, I did a little bit of like English riding, not on this, not on the miniature horses obviously, but yeah, so they were really great for like we bring them to nursing homes and we'd bring our dogs too, And one really crazy experience was that I brought Amber, who was our beagle, and at the time too, you know,
this one woman in her room and she was talking about about her dog, about her kids and everything, and that's great. And then you know, I went outside and the nurse was like, I can't believe she's talking. She never talks. And I was like, wow, wow, that was that was crazy. But I guess the power of animals.
Yeah, horses especially, they're such incredible animals.
Yeah, how do you go from growing up on a horse farm and doing so much of this sort of care work, how do you find your way into acting rather than you know, forcefully training animals or something like like what light? What lit you up?
In that way?
Yeah, it was kind of by force. I went to a small Montessori school that was just like walking distance from my house. And when I say small, I mean very small. There were five people in my grade and so to put they were doing a high school or an opera, and I don't even think we had enough people in the high school in middle school put together to do it. So it was mandatory and I didn't want to do it. I'm very stubborn. And then I
really liked it. And I remember the moment, like in the back of the theater where I was like, ugh, I really like this. I can't let anyone know. But then of course I had to let people know because my family does not do anything halfway, and I was like, I want to be an actor. And so we actually ended up going to LA pretty quickly after that.
So your family moved to LA for you to be able to pursue acting.
We okay. So I don't know if you remember Lou Pearlman. He was throwing these like talent competitions and one was in Orlando. So I went there and had a fun time and didn't get anything out of it. But there was some person I don't know who, but it was like a talent scout or something that was like, oh, yeah, you should come out to LA, and so my mom and I came out for this, you know, meeting that ended up being a casting call. That long story short,
ended up with me meeting my first entertainment lawyer. So by then he sort of, yeah, he sort of introduced us to everybody, and so that way we had a foot in the door and kind of just went up from there. And yeah, and then me and my mom we were going back and forth for a while. But then my mom realized she really liked La and I loved La.
So, yeah, are you an only child? Yeah, she says, defeated. Well it doesn't show like the only children here.
Oh okay, well we.
All grew up yeah, into the club. So it's a little less less stressful for a family to pick up and move when they've only gotten kid. You know, it's just the three of two. Was it two of you or three of you?
It was my mom and I my dad came out like every two weeks or so.
Yeah, okay, okay, cool, wow. I mean that's that's just got it. That's that's gotta be a lot of a lot of freedom. I don't maybe it was a lot of pressure. I don't know, just the feeling of like we're we're here, We've picked up our whole life. We're coming out here for me to try and do this thing that I think that I love as a child. When did it start transitioning for you as like this is something that I can really do.
Yeah, I mean part of being stubborn is kind of obsessing of something. And so we were still doing the horse farm, and when we were traveling back and forth, we were trying to see, you know, where that will fit in with everything, and we kept it going quite a bit longer than probably I don't know. We all really loved the farm, so that was hard moving away
from it. But when we got a different house in Florida, and by that time, my mom and I were mostly living in La so it just kind of naturally formed it into that.
When we decided to pursue acting, there's usually a moment that we something happens where we realize like I have to do this and it's I'm going to make it work, and like you're saying, the stubbornness of I'm going to figure out how to make this work. I have to do this, And it sounded like maybe being on stage was a moment for you for that. But I feel like when you get to La and you start integrating
with the community here and getting jobs. Like where do you have a moment where everything really clicked for you?
I do. That moment was back in Florida and I was sitting at the Players Theater backstage. I can remember the smell. I can remember, and I still use that mascara great.
Lash pink too with the green.
Yeah, we're not I paid to say anything about that, but I was putting that on. And also I was playing an eel, so I don't know in my so my face was green, and like I don't know why the eel needed scara, but anyway, Yeah, I just remember the smell and everything, and like it was just like
one of those awful moments. And yeah, and then you know, just once you were on set, you were in the in your first sort of experience with with the real world acting, not just like an acting class or acting school, it became even more addictive and like, like you know that you have to do it, like you were saying, and it's just I've never bad science.
So how did you get cast on our show? As Sam?
So? I auditioned and I was with my parents. Was it? Yeah? It was Don Kucko's down into Luca Lake and the creator was there, and he came up to the table with my mom and my dad and I and he said, saw your audition looked really good for you. I was like okay, and neither of us really knew what was going on. But then I got the call later that afternoon off to Wilmington. We go.
It was just a random audition that came in.
It was an audition. I did it like everyone else. And then yeah, I guess people were looking at it and the right person had to run into me at Don Kuco's.
And you were sixteen right when you came out to Wilmington.
Yeah, like fifteen sixteen something like that, really young.
Yeah, because you graduated high school.
Yeah. Yeah, I didn't have to do any onset I've never had to do any thank god, any onset schooling because that's your mensa.
I mean, that would be hard to find a tutor who's capable of Yeah, you probably would have been teaching them.
I'm yeah, yeah, when you're smart enough to graduate that many years early, I feel like they're like, she's good, she's finny.
But yeah, I don't know. I just saw a lot of my friends going through the onset schooling, and that just seemed kind of like awful because there you are, you're parallel to doing something that you've love, something that you want to do, and then you have to go into a room with somebody who really has no idea where you are schooling wise, and is also teaching the seven year old in the scene like with you.
So I loved on set tutoring really. It was just always it was my favorite thing. And I always did way better in my classes when I was doing a when I was doing a job, because the classroom environment just was really not suited for my brain. I had such a hard time focusing and paying attention and retaining information.
But we would do one on one and I would get straight a's every time, and it was it was material that was ahead of where my class was, so it was always more complex, and then I would get back to school and then be bored because I was already ahead of everybody. Like I wish I'd been able to do one on one tutoring for most of my life. I probably would have graduated early. That would have been nice. But I loved it.
Yeah, it definitely was in a way a lot of one on one tutoring because you had to. When you're going back and forth that month, you have to find a different schooling program. So it was definitely travel schooling. So you know, my mom tried to be my teacher for a bit, but you know, mothers and drivers, that didn't last very long. So we were from like like you were saying, you know, the one on one kind of stuff, which of course you excel at more. I
just I just really had no interest. And maybe in science and history I cared, but like, oh my god, math no interest.
Was it hard to pick up and move away from all your friends right at that sort of moment when everyone's like getting their driver's licenses and life is sort of opening up in that way?
It would, except for that my social circle consisted of like two people, so so it wasn't It wasn't that hard in that way. And I kept in touch with them too. But you know, coming out here so early on, especially being in acting classes and whatever, you you mad, you meet a lot of people your age pretty quick, and that's that kind of fulfills that void.
How did it feel coming into season six of a show?
I had no understanding of like how long it is for you guys to be in like season, Like, I don't know. I didn't know any of this. I think I don't like a guest star or something. But I had no understanding of what that felt like for you guys, So I couldn't really like give you an answer, but it it felt great because it was super smooth. Everyone knew what they were doing.
Do you do you remember your first day on set? Like what felt like getting to Wilmington and just being like, Okay, this is my life now for the next you know, a couple of months.
Oh yeah. The when I had that this is my life now was because my mother snores a lot, loudly and profusely, and it's the worst and you can't you can't sleep in the room next her. So we requested that we have like two different rooms, doesn't matter. Well, then they gave us two different of those whole apartments down by the waterfront. And so I'm fifteen and I have my own apartment, your own apartment.
It's so good.
It was so great. I was like, oh, okay, yeah, I do deserve this.
I do.
That was really fun. That was that was great And I could not hear. I mean, my mom was in the one right next to me, but I still couldn't hear a snore, so I got adequate sleep.
That was nice and your whole life changed then sounds like yeah very much.
Yeah. Then I moved out of eighteen because I was like, I've done this before. I got it. But yeah, it was fun.
It's awesome, that's so cool.
Was it kind of a wild experience? I mean, to your point, you've done a guest star before, and now you move across the country, you're in an apartment, and because you've graduated high school, you're doing full I mean you were doing full work days with us.
Yeah.
Was it sort of surreal to go to set and be like, oh, we're just going to be here for seventeen whole hours every day, like or did it just feel so exciting?
I think I think it was so exciting that I didn't mind any of the long hours. If anything, it was like a point of pride being like, oh, we're still here at that point, you know, then on awkward, you know, I'd be like, oh my god, we're still here. And I think that that must have been how you guys felt.
There were days. I think we all, you know, I think any job has those days it has too, but yeah, it.
Was great, and I think I learned a lot about like memorizing lines. I had a system, but it was great to, you know, try that system out. And I learned a lot from you guys too, Like Sophia, you were just so warm and such a professional, like you
just hit your mark, did the line. That was great and joy when I saw you and said we had like scenes in the same area and we would be in chairs, like you were just so kind and warm and yeah, it was just such I feel really grateful that that was my intro to like a reoccurring role in a larger sense, because there are there could have been a lot crazier places that would have probably left a bad taste in my mouth. Yeah, so I'm very grateful that that that was my first experience.
That's awesome. I remember being you know, we were that we had been on the show for long enough that I think we all felt established and sort of like we were figuring out how to be grown ups, and so we really enjoyed having younger having kids around, having that younger generation come in and learning how to help you guys figure out things that you didn't know because you know, you weren't the only one who came on
the show without a ton of experience. We had a lot of younger people who had come in and who had never done an acting job before, or who didn't really know much about where to how to find your mark or your lighting. And it was fun to be transitioning into that phase of our lives of learning how to be able to pass on everything that we had learned over the last six years. When we came in, feelings a little bit like whoa you know, on a plank, that's like teetery tottering in water and now and then
we felt really solid. So it was fun. It was fun to have you around, and you were always really collaborative and had lots of fun ideas and I felt like you, you know, you're very stoic. You have a very stoic sort of personality, and so it's I mean, as far as I experienced on set, and so it was it was easy to I guess project that you knew exactly what you were doing, and so it was always a little like surprising, like oh, yeah, that's right, Like she's she's still learning where the marks are and
all this stuff. It's really fun.
I had a story about that, Sophia. There's this book it's too high for me to reach. I was going to get it, but it's on a bookshelf I'm five for and that's too high. But I had this book called Lost Histories and you were like, Oh, what's what about That sounds super interesting. I'm like, yeah, it's really good. I had never read a word of that book, but I knew. I knew that people read books on set, and I was like, that's what I'm going to do, just be reading this book.
Just kind of bring a book.
Yeah, I read it.
Is so funny.
I read books for real, but just like on my phone now. But but yeah, I was totally faking it the whole time. So maybe that's where you got the stoic from.
That's so funny. Yeah.
We were like, God, she's so mature. She's like in the corner reading all these books. Yeah, this you know wise teenager. Okay, wait, were there were there any sort of experiences or similarities in your life as a teenager that you felt like you were pulling from to play sam or even when you were like working, did you sort of feel like you had to figure it out really quick and just pretend like you knew what you were doing.
One of the one of the coolest scenes I ever did, just to like sidetrack a little bit, was we're doing a super long run shot and like you could not even see the camera. It was at night, and it was with Evan Peters. Oh my god, how fun is it to see him doing right?
Yeah, you guys, you guys had a lot of fun. I feel like you got on really well. We'll come back to that.
Keep quing, sir, No, we did. He was. He was as quirky as I was. But I guess with Sam what I related to most was like having a guard up and PanAm not trusting people and you know, being an only child, feeling kind of alone and like that mentality of like, well, no one else is going to do it for you, and then being able to pull from things that I probably didn't let anybody onto in real life was very therapeutic.
What were you going to say, though, you said you had a moment when it was you were shooting a scene with Evan.
Oh, yeah, we just looked at each other and we were like, all scenes should be shot this way. We can't see a camera. It was night, but we didn't see anything and it was so easy to do.
I've those are the best.
Yeah, I have had like two of those since, but oh my god, it's such a great, great thing.
Mh.
But that was that was one of the moments that I'm like, I wish I could do that again. That was so nice. But yeah, dude, Evan Peters, how well is he doing?
Oh my gosh, yeah, he's taken off. You guys picked up right away. I mean I remember when he came in. You both just clicked. It was like easy, connective energy. You both always had your like inside jokes. I feel like I was always looking over the two of you, giggling in the corner and just talking about whatever kids sixteen year olds talk about at the time. It was so fun.
Yeah, he was. He was just kind of quirky and offbeat, and I was probably not pretending to read books at that point, but it was it was nice, it was easy. I felt like somebody got my sense of humor. And yeah, we did click right away because he was in his twenties. But I remember, like my mom was like, do you mean anything, We can take you someplace, and he goes, just did you go to the grocery store and get some beer and popcorn. Oh, he got pancakes too, but
that was genuinely all he bought. And I was like, oh, okay.
Bear and popcorn and pancakes. What else does that seventeen year old?
Yeah, well.
Yeah, oh gosh. So fast forward ten or so years later, you're still in LA. What's happening in your life? What are you know, some of the lessons that you've learned through your experience on Awkward at Montree Hill and all the other stuff that you've been doing since then. Just give us a lay of the land for you right now, where you're at.
Yeah, it's been it's been great to have that experience. It would have been probably really rough holding up carrying a show like Awkward if I hadn't, you know, had that huge experience on Montree Hill, which was still I mean has so many fun memory. It's like, even even when we were back there for the convention, I still went and walked around down to time. I was like, oh, that was so nice. And there was this one scene
where it was pretty early on in our filming. I think it might have even been in this episode where you and I Sophia were in a real life diner filming nice and you know, there are all the fans who are always like waiting outside once we're filming one of my episodes hit the air yet, but they're losing their mind over you, and they know they know that I'm somehow in the scene with you, so then they start losing their mind over me. And I was so excited. I was like, oh yeah, I'll fine that. And it
was fun. It was so great because they, you know, freak out over you, and then they were still wanting to freak out, so I got the second phase of the freak out. That was fun. But I guess the things that I learned m on One Tree Hill that really helped me the most was just how to how to be on set, how to how to welcome new people, how to kind of I don't know, if the day can be made shorter. You can point it out to maybe like a very new director who you can tell
is a little intimidated, like it's all good. You know, we can not to like back seat direct, but you know, when you're doing your rehearsals, you can just say, you know, is it better for you if I'm over here? And then it is and we all get out two hours earlier.
Yeah, but yeah, those little tips and tricks.
Yeah, but I don't know, you guys really taught me like how to cry, and it's just take your time and kind of have it rolling before you need to be on it because it's kind of distracting when they're like an action then you're supposed to be like, but you can just have them be rolling in that waste anyone's time for thirty seconds and that was super helpful and important. Also I learned never ugly cry and definitely what that meant. But really, as it is, it's like
it's so hard when you're really upset. You're just upset. But yeah, and what you were saying about, like you know how exciting it is to have like a new generation, it was. It was the same way on on Awkward, we had have new people who we knew were going to be around for a long time for many episodes. It was that like excitement and seeing how they were on set and you know, a lot of them it was their first big thing too, and so you know,
you hope you're helping them, but yeah, it was. It was just such a pivotal show for me just setting it up for everything else I do.
That's so cool.
I love hearing that.
When you tell that that story about all the folks outside the Dixie Girl. It feels like a perfect segue because we told the fans you were coming on the show, and my god, they sent in so really questions for you. So yeah, so we want to do I mean, we have a million more questions want to ask you, but you know, we want to. We want to spread the love around and let make sure we get through some of us Q.
And Okay, So the first one is from Katie. She says, what is your favorite scene of Brooke and Sam?
I remember being very uncomfortable assaulting you and that first scene so for you, so it's pretty happy like every other episode where I didn't have to like punching or throw you down.
I mean, have you how much have you watched the episodes? Like have you gone back and watched the stuff that you were in or are you one of those actors that's like I just can't I can't watch it.
No, I've watched it, I just haven't like it's so weird to watch like something where it's like ten years ago.
Yeah, for you, it is isn't it.
It's hard to pick one, but I think you know that episode where Sam leaves. I think we both got to do a lot of crying, and that's always good. Actors love that when they get a chance to cry. And yeah, so somewhere in there.
Well, that sort of relates to Christina's question because she wants to know what was your hardest scene to shoot? Would it have been one of those really emotional ones, do you think?
Yeah, there was one, and I don't remember what episode it is, but I think Sam had done something bad and she was I was just like doing the dishes or something in Brooks House and like that required a lot of emotion. So that was pretty hard. But yeah, actually the first scene in close over Grows was probably the hardest because I had no experience with like physicality or stunts or anything. So you did a lot of the guidework on that that I guess technically for me that was the hard us.
I just remember having to be like, don't worry, it's gonna be okay. You can chell me like we'll be well, we're gonna be all right. Do it like, do it harder, you know, because you yeah, it was you poor thing. I mean, they gave it to you on your first day. You're like, hey, nice to me. You let me just hte like, what a weird brutal to be introduced to someone. And I remember being like, I know exactly how you're feeling. We're gonna be okay me and you.
Yeah what, So, Ashley, did they ask you to come back, like for Brooks wedding or anything? Where were you? Where were you? Where did you go?
I don't know. I didn't know where I was. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think because we walked off in by like that's pretty offense, and she was just gone. She didn't like die or anything, but she just like, but you walked off.
Into the sunset to go live with her mom.
You wound up awkward though pretty quickly, right.
Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't like a year exactly.
So I feel like that's the thing that happens is, you know, great people leave a show and then they wind up on another show, and then they're not available to come back for special episodes or whatever, because you know, you're off working and starring on your own thing, which was so cool.
Yeah, I would love to have been in two places at once, though, thinking.
Back on it now, Jess wants to know this, and so do we. Is there any storyline you would have liked to see for Sam that you didn't get to do while you were on the show.
I mean, I think it's like an easy one where you're like, oh, Sam gets pregnant, but that would have locked me in for a couple episodes.
Definitely would have kept you around for a while.
Yeah, so that would have been great. Then there's also like, what about the skateboarding thing, because Sam was supposed to be a skateboarder, and oh yeah, I am athletic. I am not afraid of heights. I am so scared of being an inch and a half off the ground.
Skateboards are terrifying.
It's fine, I paddleboard, I mean, but I can't skateboard. I'm just I don't know.
That's like these hoverboards with the two wheels on either side. My daughter has friends that just jump on these hoverboards and they're just zooming, zipping around their driveways in the house, and I'm like, every time I get on one, I feel like I'm gonna fall over.
I haven't tried one, probably for the same reasons. The skateboards. It didn't work.
Tara is asking what is your best on set memory with the cast and crew? That's a nice like, oh, let's put a bow on it. I just loved this moment.
Okay, on set moment. I don't mean to make fun of this person, I really I don't. So there was this background artist who I thought just smelled like a ragan o but he just smelled overall Herbie. Sure in life I would come to know what that is, but he was. He was just so weird. And he was talking to me, and he was kind of like holding up the wall and like wondering it kind of thing. And I was like, all right, like Rocky Rocky, Rocky's like, I don't know what this situation is. So he came over.
Background artist names Joe. We've been filming for like reasonably ten hours, but the prop food had been put out the beginning of the day. It was North Carolina heat, oh boy, and Joe decides to go eat one of those sandwiches, and a PA stops and before and goes no, no, no, don't eat that. Obviously for continuity as well, but like also there's ham, cheese and mustard on this like don't eat that.
No, no, no, he ate it.
And we looked over like an hour and a half later, Joe was like, oh oh. And so then like when they did get to you know, see him and he was in the shot, he was just like on a launchair, I mean to sleep. Oh that was something. I think the other one was so I think it was a book that Hillary bought me, and she did buy me a great book on that I have to sit next
to me, but this might have been another one. And it was about like fairies and mystical stuff and we're in the makeup trailer and I brought it and Rocky and I were like, there's a puison there that says like what kind of mystical creature are you? And so I was hoping for Unicorn. I got know I read ticket and I was like maybe that was a goof Now I got know him again. U. So so then the next day from the set and on my trailer is
a little garden though just right on the step. It was so cute and so yeah, well we named him Philip and put some blush on him and I've had him ever since. Philip Philip is the best.
I love that those are the little things you carry with you that you know nobody would know about who wasn't in the sort of intimate cast family. And I don't know, I just I love it. I love all those quirky little pieces of chotchkeys and things that make you, you know, feel a little warm.
And those are the things that make it feel like a family. Just all the little things that happened in the trailers and between the trailers and from the trailers to set and in between the shots watching background people eat, say, old sandwiches, just like man, that's the stuff that really builds the bond.
Yeah, I remember, I remember one here we are like Arou'm Halloween or something. Rocky Tim and my mom and I and some other people all decide to go up to I think Charleston supposed to be like super Haunted or whatever, and so we wanted to go on one of those ghost tours. And props to the guy who was doing the tour, he is a good and committed actor. As corny as the situation was, he was, he was on it. And they're like, if you see any orbs, those are spirits. So whether it's a dust particle or
an orb, we'll never know. But but so we're taking all these pictures and everything. At the end of the tour, we end up at like a cemetery because you've gone through like the house and other places, and so we're at a cemetery and I'm like, I'm like, fifteen sixteen, I'm just being obnoxious, but I'm laughing, giggling, stifling giggling the whole time. And we get out to the cemetery area or whatever, where we're like, Okay, take a bunch
of pictures and see what you get. And there's this one picture with all of us where there genuinely are like orbs that didn't look like dust particles, but they could have been very large dust particles.
M just hanging out all around you.
It will ever know. Yeah, Wow, that was fun.
Amazing, Well fun, guys. We're gonna wrap it up because we have a recap to do of our actual episode where we really start to get to know Sam, so we're going to dive into that. And thanks for hanging out with us this week, and we'll see you. We'll see you soon.
Yep.
Hey, thanks for listening.
Don't forget to leave us a review. You can also follow us on Instagram at Drama Queen's Ota.
Or email us at Drama Queens at iHeartRadio dot com. See you next time.
We all about that high school drama girl, Drama girl, all about them high school queens. We'll take you for a ride and our comic girl cheering for the right teams.
Drama Queenslise my girl, rough girl fashion with your tough girl, you
Could sit with us Girl Drama Queens, Drama Queise Drama Queens, Drama Drama Queens, Drama Queens