![]() “It can be up to seven different calls until you get to the last round.”īut that last round eventually came, and Joshua could feel a lump in his throat. “It’s a long, long, long process that starts with an audition and one or two callbacks them a screen test and network test,” he explains. “I’ve definitely been around the block with Disney auditions before but this one was different,” he recalls.Īfter getting through multiple callbacks and meeting with the show’s creator, Terri Minsky (creator of “Lizzie McGuire”) he was close but so, so far. “‘Oh, it’s okay to be me!’ It validates you when you see yourself on screen.”īut the entire process, he recalls, was “completely terrifying.” Though, at the age of 16, he’s already a Hollywood veteran (he was already on hit shows like “Heroes,” “Chuck,” “Private Practice,” and acting since he was 2-years old), auditioning for Cyrus, specifically was nerve-wracking. “Everybody should have the chance to see someone on TV and be like, ‘that’s me,’” he tells Very Good Light. Inclusivity, he says, is important – especially at a political climate like in 2018 – and getting a gay role down authentically, was essential. “We spent an hour and a half just talking about him recounting his coming out,” he says. With one friend specifically, he recalls asking intimate questions about gay identity and perspective. He’d call his past friends and ask them personal questions about their coming out stories. For months before his audition, he says he consulted with many of his gay friends. The role wasn’t one that Joshua took lightly. The powerfully nuanced story arc has been nominated for various awards and eventually winning 2018’s GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Kids & Family Programming as well as one from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. While in the first season, he has a girlfriend, he later comes into his own and eventually comes out to the world. ![]() ![]() On “Andi Mack,” Joshua plays Cyrus Goodman, the best friend of Andi Mack, a tween who discovers her sister is actually her mother. In fact, it was the first time a young character came out on the network. Playing a gay character on the Disney Channel was historic, a role that was extremely progressive – and completely bold – for a family-centric show. It’s only when you realize that the sentences muttered are coming out from a babyfaced teen and the fact that he’s also accompanied by his father, that brings you back to how young he actually is.įor being a consumer of news, Joshua has been in it quite often in the past year. He comes off completely, well, adult-like. He talks matter-of-factly, without spikes in his intonation. ![]() For being essentially a young person himself, Joshua is more Walter Cronkite than he is a teenager. “I’ve talked about all different kinds of subjects and deliver just facts – kids are going to be able to come up with their own opinions,” he says. Indeed, when I meet the precocious young person at his favorite coffee shop hidden in Culver City, in Los Angeles, he’s sounding off on politics – his main passion – and how “kids are scared of it – it’s very alienating.” His love of the news has led to his recurring Instagram video series, “News in a Rush,” where he dissects the day’s subjects in under a minute. SEE ALSO: Jake Choi is the sexually fluid actor taking over your Wednesdays The actor and star of the Disney Channel’s “Andi Mack” (which premieres tonight for its third season), says he’s a complete news junkie, and will spend his entire day poring over every story, scanning MSNBC to Breitbart where the truth “is somewhere in the middle.” He’ll then move on to the New York Times, Washington Post, and catch up on the Economist, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal. Joshua Rush is a 50-year old trapped in a 16-year old’s body.
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