INTERVIEW: ‘Zombies’ star Meg Donnelly heads to Disney World for holiday special
Photo: Disney Channel’s Zombies 2 stars Kylee Russell as Eliza, James Godfrey as Bonzo, Kingston Foster as Zoey, Ariel Martin as Wynter, Pearce Joza as Wyatt, Milo Manheim as Zed, Meg Donnelly as Addison, Chandler Kinney as Willa, Carla Jeffery as Bree and Trevor Tordjman as Bucky. Photo courtesy of Disney Channel / Ed Herrera / Provided by press site with permission.
Meg Donnelly and the cast from Disney Channel’s hit movie franchise Zombies have banded together once again for a holiday special airing Friday, Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. on the network. Joining Donnelly are Milo Manheim, Kylee Russell and Trevor Tordjman, and the quartet will square off in Disney’s Holiday Magic Quest. The televised adventure finds the actors heading to Walt Disney World Resort’s Hollywood Studios for a series of challenges and obstacles, and only one team — either the green team or red team — will prove victorious.
For Donnelly, the chance to compete with her friends from Zombies was a welcome holiday treat.
“It was an immediate yes,” Donnelly said in a recent phone interview. “This was the second one that we did, and the first one I missed out on the opportunity. They asked me, but I was filming American Housewife. I was so upset. [They] had the best time, and it’s all they talk about still. When they presented me with the opportunity, I was like, ‘Yes, yes, 1,000 times. I’m available.’ It was the best time ever. I understand what they were talking about now.”
Donnelly said that the best part of the challenge was the fact that it was overnight. The team completed multiple night shoots in the park while it was closed, so that meant no other visitors and no long waits on the lines. Their “days” went from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m.
“It was wild, and that was so much fun because we were silly and goofy,” she said. “We had a bunch of challenges to do, so we split up into teams. So I was on the team with Trevor, the green team, and then Milo and Kylee were on the red team. We split up and went around the park, and we only used Hollywood Studios, which was great. And some of the challenges included going on some of the rides. Some of the challenges were we had to build things. We had to talk to a bunch of different characters. We were running around the park all night, going to our next challenge. It was so much fun.”
The actor counts herself as a big fan of Disney’s parks. She has fond memories of visiting Walt Disney World Resort once a year when she was a child. She grew up in New York City, so she would head to Florida with her family, and now the experience of visiting the parks is one stepped in nostalgia.
“I definitely love roller-coasters,” Donnelly said. “I love all types of rides. The only ride I was always so scared of was Tower of Terror. I think because when I was little, it scared me at some point. I always have a weird thing where I’m like, I can’t do that, but we had to ride it for one of the challenges. I was like, OK, I guess I’m going to do it, and honestly it was so much fun. I wasn’t scared anymore, so now because of that, now I have no limit.”
When the Zombies cast gets together, they feel like a huge family. They have been together for three movies now (the third installment will come out in 2022, but it’s already filmed), and the cast members love spending time together.
“Every time we spend more time together and work together, we just get closer and closer,” she said. “I feel like on this scavenger hunt, the four of us got even closer than before. It’s always great to work with them because we just keep bonding. It doesn’t feel like work when we’re working together.”
Donnelly joined the Zombies family after falling in love with her character of Addison. She appreciates that the movies split their time between the zombies and humans, showing the similarities and differences between the two groups. Plus, joining the franchise fulfilled a lifelong goal of hers.
“I grew up on High School Musical and Cheetah Girls and all of that,” she said. “I was like, oh my gosh, it would be so cool to do this. Just the message of the movie that you have to treat everyone the way they want to be treated, and don’t make any preconceived judgments on people just because of what you know about them. … It was such a great message for kids, and I was like, man, I really want to be a part of this. And I really want to show this to kids.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Disney’s Holiday Magic Quest, featuring Meg Donnelly and the cast of Zombies, will air Friday, Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. on Disney Channel, and it will be available to stream on Disney+. Click here for more information.
