Pretty Little Liars is on Seventeen's list of must-see TV shows and if you're like us – you're counting down the minutes until the show returns on January 3rd at 7:58 p.m. ET. So, we were beyond ecstatic to catch up with Troian Bellisario, who plays the seemingly perfect Spencer Hastings on the hit show and is on the cover of Seventeen's February issue. Here, Troian gets personal about what her fellow cast mates are really like, her own high school clique, and the run-ins with fame and the paparazzi she had way before her PLL fame.
17: Sum up what fans of the show should expect when Pretty Little Liars returns.
Troian Bellisario: Everything that you'd ever want to happen and everything that you'd never expect to happen will happen. It's so much fun and there are so many good twists. And it's really cool. The mystery is always there, but they're starting to settle into the characters and see these really great relationships develop and change. I'm very, very excited for people to see what we're doing.
17: Now that you've been playing Spencer for a bit – tell us how you relate to her. Are you anything like Spencer?
TB: I relate to Spencer a lot because I grew up in a very wealthy family around a very wealthy group of people. My high school was a private school where you went to an Ivy League. That's just what was expected of you and nothing less. So I grew up never being okay with a 'B' because a 'B' was not good enough. And it wasn't really my parents. My parents told me to 'put down the books, go outside, you look like death.' They were always very supportive of me. But I think it was the school I went to and the world I was born into. And, I think Spencer is kind of in that. She's in this beautiful, golden cage where everybody just says 'you have everything so you have no excuse to trip up.'
17: Who's least like their character?
TB: Shay [Mitchell], in terms of being sweet and sensitive – she's like Emily. But Shay comes to set in the morning, it'll be seven in the morning, she'll come in heels, skinny jeans, the most gorgeous, glamorous top and her hair is like a Pantene Pro-V ad. Then she'll come film her scene wearing these dirty converse and jeans as Emily – which is like what I arrived in. And I'm like 'Who are you?' It's so funny to see her kick off her sneakers at the end of the day and go home in heels.
17: Can you relate to your own high school experience? Did you have an Ali in your group?
TB: When I was in seventh grade, there was this girl that was a lot like Ali. She terrified me. You were terrified of her and you were also in love with her in that you wanted to be her. She was a woman already and we were just girls. So you looked up to her in a way that it was like 'How do you do that?' How did she know exactly what to say to boys? How exactly to handle a parent to get us to stay up late? She knew how to manipulate people in a way that children normally don't. And she used that against us. If you betrayed her you felt like you betrayed your sister. It was a very interesting power dynamic. Fortunately, I grew away from that and I matured and we stayed really good friends. I think that's why I was a guys' girl.
17: What was it like being one of the guys?
TB: I grew up with brothers. Girls terrified me. If a boy was mad at you, he hit you or he'd yell at you. I'm thinking about my brothers. Boys didn't go around just hitting me. But it was easy. With girls all of a sudden she'll tell you 'That skirt looks ugly on you.' And you're like 'Oh you're mad at me! I have to figure out what I've done.' I had one really good girl friend all through high school. It's funny, being on a show that's so girl heavy I'm enjoying having girl friends for the first time. It's really cool.
17: Are you friends with anyone else from young Hollywood?
TB: Well, I'm really fortunate. I was born here and I was raised here in Los Angeles. And when I was five years old, my best friends were Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen because we lived across the street from each other. As I got older, I had a bunch of friends that were various teen stars. I've always known people in the spotlight and people who just grew up in LA and had nothing to do with the industry. It's not a glamorous thing to me. It's just a different type of business. I've seen friends go down the path of drugs or letting the spotlight go to their heads. I've witnessed that. It's not a very good option if you want to have a long career like I do and do a lot of different things.'
17: What was it like being friends with Mary Kate and Ashley as child stars?
TB: I just knew them as the girls across the street. And I remember the first time I was playing with them and something happened and I realized these aren't normal kids. They're treated differently. But, I grew up on a set. My dad is a successful television producer, director and writer and my mom's a director, and writer. Even when I was young I wanted to be an actress. I knew the actors and the paparazzi. It was just kind of always in my landscape. It was never directed at me, but it was always somewhere so I could see how it operated and I could see it from afar and go 'Wow, that's not really glamorous, it's kind of exhausting not having any privacy.' So it was never something I pursued. The first time I saw the billboard for Pretty Little Liars I almost got into a car accident!
Which celebrity do you wish you were friends with? Do you relate to Troian? Tell us all in the comments section below!
