Liz Gillies & Ariana Grande Watched Quiet On Set Together
They took “time to thoughtfully look back, reassess and reevaluate” things.
The stars of Victorious are reexamining their time on Nickelodeon. In a July 16 interview with Variety, Liz Gillies (who played Jade West on the show) opened up about her experience watching Quiet on Set with Ariana Grande (who played Cat Valentine). According to Gillies, they both “reprocessed” things afterward.
“I certainly reevaluated my experience with Ariana over FaceTime,” Gillies told Variety. They both worked with Dan Schneider, Victorious’ creator and one of the main subjects in Quiet on Set. “We watched [Quiet on Set] together, and then we got together later that week or the next week, and we sort of broke the whole thing down and talked about it, and reprocessed everything together. There was a lot to go through.”
Beforehand, Gillies said she had looked back on her child stardom “positively.” She told the outlet, “It’s tricky when you look back on something incredibly positively, and then you learn a lot of information and also revisit things as an adult through a new lens that reframe the memories in your mind a little bit, or cloud them, or taint them — maybe rightfully so.”
“So, taking that time to thoughtfully look back, reassess and reevaluate was an important thing to do, and that’s something we did,” she continued. “I’m very lucky I have such a close relationship with my cast — and with Ari — and that we were all able to do that together, because we definitely leaned on each other, talked amongst each other and checked in with each other.”
Gillies also shared what she thinks should be done to protect child actors in the future. “I think parents should be allowed to be wherever they want to be, whenever they want to be,” she said. Gillies added that a psychologist should be involved in the process, offering support to the actors before filming starts, during the project, and after the show wraps.
Gillies wasn’t the only Victorious star to speak out after the docuseries. In June, Grande told Podcrushed that the show was “devastating” to see. “I’m still, in real time, reprocessing my relationship to it,” she said at the time.
In May, Victoria Justice (who played Tori Vega) shared her opinion on Quiet on Set. “Something that was very evident in the documentary is that Dan had a very large ego, and sometimes that ego clouded his better judgment and affected the way he treated people, and there were times I felt like I was being treated unfairly,” she told the outlet, adding that some inappropriate jokes in the show “were in poor taste.”
She added that Schneider “definitely” owed her an apology.
